An Act of Compassion
by markovas
Summary: The choices we've made and make define who we are and who we will be. This is a story about hardships and pain from which come hope and peace. But things in life are temporary just like life itself, thus one must not constrict themselves because of fear and doubt, as the only thing that is to be feared is fear itself. Set in Zootopia AU of the film's beginning.
1. Twisted Fates

**Chapter One**

 **Twisted Fates**

"Thanks, Ben, I'll see you on my way out." Judy, an anthropomorphic grey-white rabbit in her early twenties, waved at the obese receptionist, who was like rooted to his poor chair in the middle of the Zootopia Police Department's foyer. She only had to check out her equipment in the armory and head home. It wasn't the best first day, but it was an acceptable one the least.

" _Ah, cute little thing. She'll get eaten in no time… Such a shame_ …" Her tall ears managed to catch the rogue words of the obese cheetah, and her trod was reduced in intensity, as she hadn't expected to hear such from the only mammal in the department who was friendly towards her. From Bogo, from McHorn, from the citizens who she had ticketed during the long day, sure. But from _him…_ Her stomach gurgled with a sort of bubbling pain. The negatives were starting to overwhelm the positives, but with pure determination, she kept on moving and passed the armory door, heading down the armory corridor with deep breaths that felt steamy and acidic.

Her bright expectations about how much different it would be in the most prestigious police department in the city of Zootopia were broken on just the first day, yet she was reluctant to back down. She always went against the odds, as the odds were against her all her life, and there she was, at the job she had dreamt of being at. Tho, ticketing parking meters wasn't what she was picturing.

Just as she was about to go around another corner, a weasel and a coyote got in her way. The brown-furred weasel was slightly taller than her, not taking her long ears into account. He was in police blues like the rest of the officers in the precinct, but his badge was nowhere in sight. In a way, his slender build looked unhealthy around the creased clothes that dishonored the job he was entrusted.

His whiskers were long and some of them even bent, his tail was ungroomed and scruffy; and he had bloodshot red eyes, eyes that looked tired of age. If he wasn't wearing a police uniform, she would have thought that he was a hobo in a stolen uniform. The wackiness that his expression spoke, it was tugging on her nerves, and there seemed to be some sort of toothpick between his mustard teeth.

His white-furred companion was a coyote with a bushy brown-tipped tail. At least his badge was present. But what more was there was the cunning in his umber eyes. Cunning that festered in the calmness around his tidy existence, unlike the body of jitteriness next to him. He was evaluating her obviously and thoroughly. Judy, she was somehow shocked at these two new faces, and felt a sense of danger in front of herself. Amidst that, she saw the old and deep scar on the coyote's nose, but she was interrupted from her observations by the harsh and jeering voice of the weasel.

"Hah, look who we have here, if it isn't, Flopsy the Copsy. And here I thought that the morning presentation was just a fat joke, _tck-tck_." The weasel chuckled and looked at his companion for a confirmation, but his smile crashed as no reaction was given to him. That visibly annoyed the unkempt officer.

The words managed to jolt energy into her, getting her to frown at the attempted bullying from the weasel's part. "Excuse me, but my name's Officer Hopps, not Flopsy th…" She couldn't even finish as the weasel interrupted her abruptly.

"You're EXCUSED. And you're who I say you're, hickity-hick" -he crushed the toothpick that was between his teeth and swiftly pulled another one from out his pocket- "and you'll address me as Lieutenant Weaselton or Sir when talking to me, do you understand, cottontail?"

Bewilderment. Her whole day was filled with bad surprises and each time she thought it couldn't get worse, it did. From her morning public humiliation, to her personal in front of her boss, Chief Bogo. The workday with the _happy_ Zootopian civilians was even worse. She even found out that Ben, the friendliest mammal she had ever met doubted that she would succeed in any way, shape, or form.

And now, now she encountered an officer, who was her superior and seemed like he liked power too much, sounding and acting like a total piece of filth. If she didn't play along, she could get into trouble, which by the looks of things and her current situation with the Chief, just wasn't going to do her any good in the long run. And how did this scruffy-looking weasel get to such a rank with such an attitude, it was beyond her.

"Y-yes, Sir," she replied, slightly stuttering with a lightly twitching nose because her nervousness was getting the better of her and making her marginally to lose control of herself.

"Ah-ha-ha" he slapped his knees from laughter, "you just got here and you're already shitting your pants?" -he looked at the coyote for a second- "what, you thought that when you join, you were going to get greeted with hugs, flowers, and overflowing support? Guess again, Cottontail," he spat the last words with such ferocity that it caused spit to fly out of his mouth and hit Judy in the eye.

She stumbled back, not knowing what had happened and tried to regain her balance, while attempting to remove the gruesome spit that was now going down her silver cheek, staining its purity. She wasn't going to let him talk her down and do as he pleased. "Sir, could you not spit at me when talking, I would appreciate it," she affirmed firmly, while looking directly at his twitching red eyes.

"And I would _appreciate_ it if you kept your mouth shut, country girl." He spat again at the last words, this time intentionally, but Judy was ready and dodged it with ease. That didn't anger the weasel tho, he actually grinned and moved his jaw left and right, thus repositioning the stick on the other side of his maw.

"Now, now, who knew you had hidden talents within you, Officer Hippity-hop," he jabbed in a mocking and sardonic tone. "Maybe after you get fired, we can find a job suitable for you. You'll do pretty well considered you'd be exotic goods. Maybe me and you can work something out, fluffbutt," he finished with drool falling off his mouth and a very suggestive look.

Judy understood immediately at what he was hinting, feeling disgusted by the weasels words she retaliated in an instant, not wanting to let him win and think that she was some good for nothing, meek prey. "I would never ever do that. Even if you were the last mammal on the planet" -she saw his smirk turn into a very foul grin and that made her to lose her temper as well as manners- "I would rather sleep with a corpse than have anything to do with you. You are vulgar and also disgusting but not only from the outside but the inside as well, Lieutenant _Weazelton_."

The things that Judy said managed to anger the weasel, but the thing that made him lose control was the mispronunciation of his name. The weasel's whole body started twitching, and he started grinding his teeth. "It's _WEASELTON_ you dumb cunt. And _oo-ohh_ , we can make that part with the corpse a reality, just you _wait_!" he yelled and began walking towards her with clenched fists. Judy immediately knew what was happening, her academy training kicking in, making her take a battle stance and readying herself for the oncoming obvious attack.

The coyote that had not moved nor said anything during the entire conversation, who looked calm and collected, now had an extremely serious expression. To her surprise he stepped in and grabbed Weaselton by the shoulder, stopping him dead in his tracks. She thought that the weasel would go haywire and attack his companion at any given second. What surprised her most was that the weasel actually calmed down and his shoulders sagged.

There were some awkward seconds of silence and then the coyote uttered something for the first time since their encounter. "Now, now Duke, that cute little bunny didn't mean to offend you by saying that. She is a rookie and doesn't know her way around yet. There's no need to do anything irrational right now as she is our colleague. Even if we don't want her to be" -he gripped his shoulder and the doe could see his sharp claws digging into the weasel- "we can let her have a pass for now and just give her a warning to be careful next time, don't you think so, Duke?" he spoke very calmly and to his question the weasel only nodded and gulped, which didn't go unnoticed by the grey doe.

 _What in the name of carrots is going on here? How did this day go south so fast…_

"Now, Officer Hopps, I am Sergeant Thane Songdog and as we can see, you've greatly insulted my partner here."

Before he could continue, she intervened, "I insulted him? Didn't you hear what he said to me before I even uttered a sound. He even…" she couldn't finish as the coyote raised his paw, gesturing her to stop.

"I understand that maybe… he may have gone overboard with his comments" -the doe crossed her arms in dissatisfaction- "but we've had a rough day and I hope that you can understand and forgive him for his attitude. We haven't played around all day like you have, so it's reasonable to be a little edgy" -the coyote started smirking lightly- "don't you think, Officer Hopps?" He tried to downplay the situation, paying her small insults but still keeping a respectable tone. The doe wasn't content with what had been explained because it wasn't going to cut it for her.

"Reasonable? He offered to pay me for my body and downright threatened to kill me. Do you think that's minor and within reason, Sergeant Songdog?" She was irritated and mad at the coyote that tried to cover for his partner, not knowing how he could defend such an individual like Weaselton, such an abominable, hateful, and vile mammal. First impressions always mattered.

She didn't know very much about the duo but they looked like shady policemammals, and the hints from Duke made her question their motives and agendas. But that was for later to think upon, now she had to deal with them and not get into trouble as they were still her superiors, and she was just a rookie. Her train of thought was stopped when her ears registered that the coyote had started to talk again.

"Yes, as I said this is just a big misunderstanding, we are both on edge after today's activities, aren't we, Duke?" He looked at his partner with a cold glare and the weasel only nodded again, not peeling a word from since the coyote intervened. "And about the threat, it was just in the heat of the moment, Officer Hopps, he didn't mean it. But when you mispronounced his name" -Thane _tut-tutted_ \- "he got a little emotional and with today's events… he was just bottling it up for far too long. Which as you saw resulted in him saying things he didn't really mean to say. Now, will you be able to forgive him?" He asked but didn't let her answer and did that himself. "Of course you will, and you'll say you are sorry that you've caused him to lose his cool and everything will be a-okay." The last sentence made the doe's black-tipped ears to droop heavily behind her as she became wide-eyed.

The way the coyote said that sounded more like an order to Judy more than anything else. And seeing his body language, he was showing signs of impatience. She was exhausted and didn't want to push further, so she just humored them so it would end sooner. Her dissatisfied gaze moved towards the weasel's red eyes and she began with a monotone voice, "I'm sorry, Liuetenant Weaselton, for making you lose your temper."

For the first time since the coyote's intervention the weasel spoke, "And ya better be careful next time, Flopsy, or you won't be able to get away with it like today," he threatened her again, making a shit-eating grin on his face but she knew she shouldn't do anything at this very moment, so she just let it go and sighed quietly.

The coyote laughed and patted the weasel on the back with the paw that had been holding him back till now. "Now, now, Duke, enough jokes for today or Officer Hopps won't be able to sleep because of your twisted humor. Say, Judy, can I call you Judy"-she opened her mouth to answer-"of course I can, let me ask you something. Where are you from?"

She hesitated before answering while being slack-jawed, the coyote managing to talk over her and steer the conversation very fast. But she decided to answer anyway, not seeing any harm in doing so. "I'm from Bunnyburrow… Sir."

Thane snickered and moved away from Duke. "Ah, that rabbit infested land. Pretty good produce it makes, must I say. Why are you here tho, if I may ask?" He gave her a questionable look and she could see his focused attention.

"I'm here because I want to make the world a better place as it has been my dream since I was a kid," she shoved her usual answer which she gave to any mammal that asked her about her motives. And oh were those mammals many. She started doing it when the point was no longer seen in giving different arguments to mammals who slipped the topic forward, so she just went with a simple and direct answer.

"Oh, what a difference you are making," he lashed, mocking her reason and position. "The reality tho is this cutesey. You are in the wrong place to be making a change, and I'll give you a tip for free. No services will be required of you, don't worry," he quipped smirkingly, while glancing at Duke and sending him a wink.

"Stop trying to make a difference if you don't want to end up on the other side of the law. Keep your head down and just do what you are told. If you go against that, well, it won't be a pleasant experience. The same is with change, if you go and initiate it, there will be consequences you naïve overenthusiastic, cute little bunny." She couldn't understand where this was coming from and if he had said it to mock her or was being honest about it but when she saw the weasel's shocked expression, she guessed that the coyote was speaking truthful and serious.

She noticed his smirk to fall down as he developed the same cold expression before the intervention. "We've stayed here way too long and must be going. We've got work to do unlike some mammals," he looked at Judy with scorn for a brief moment and started walking shortly after. "Come now, Duke, we're wasting daylight." Duke grunted and followed suit while giving the doe a very hostile glare. He winked at her just when he was almost out of sight and laughed very vilely.

Judy stayed there, paralyzed, and confused like hell. She saw that even if Duke was Thane's superior, he didn't act like one. It was the other way around but she guessed that it was unofficial, therefor she took note to avoid those two mammals as best as she could or until she had enough evidence to prove any wrongdoings on their part and get them off her back. Her first impression on both of them being an incredibly bad one but maybe they were just like that and could be good cops, who knew.

 _What did I get myself into… If I just stayed at Bunn—…_

 _No Judith, you are not what they say you are, and you are going to show them. If you fail, it will only show them that they were right. And you cannot fail!_

She sighed sadly and resumed her journey to the armory with a lot of conflicting thoughts.

* * *

"Come on, Fin, press on the gas. You're are driving like a mammal with Alzheimers," Nick, a red fox in his late twenties, jabbed at his friend and wiggled his brows with a shit-eating grin.

"Shut yo fuckin' face, Wilde, or I'll smash it so hard, ya'll look less ugly after I'm done," barked the fennec. For a small fox he had a very deep voice, a voice that would and did surprise a lot of mammals who'd hear him for the first time. Now, he and Nick were partners. They bought Jumbo-Pops and melted them, selling them afterwards for twice the price. It was a good way to make money, and it wasn't too much, thus the authorities really didn't pay them no mind because they just didn't attract attention to themselves or their spoils of sale.

They didn't anger any gangs because what they were selling were just sweets. The only thing Nick knew that Finnick hated was that he had to act as a toddler and listen to his antics all day. It was a big price to pay for the safe _business_ they had. And _oh-h_ , was the red fox happily eating it all up in satisfaction to the humility his partner was going through to get them what they wanted…

"Don't talk back to your daddy you ill-mannered little squirt. You are getting grounded when we get home, you'll see," Nick quipped and laughed out loud, getting Finnick to hit the brakes in that very moment and jump behind the seats. "Don't worry, pip-squeak, I'll let you watch your favourite cartoons and..." he couldn't finish, as he saw what his partner was wielding, which made him jolt from his seat and leap out of the van's open window, thus falling on the sidewalk with a small thud and tortured _oof_.

"H-h-hey, Fin, let's not do anything irrational. You know I was just kidding." The red fox stood up, dusted off his khakis pants and readjusted his hawaiian shirt's tie. "And we don't want to scare future customers if you beat up this handsome face. Don't you think?" After getting everything out, his smirk extended towards an unnatural angle, making him look quite disturbing.

"Shut the fuck up! I haven't beaten the crap outa ya caus' a coppa or civie might see me. Come 'ere so I can show ya who's daddy yа fuckin' son of a bitch," yelled the fennec fox, and despite the elephant costume that was hugging his body in the reactions of smirks to Nick, the danger was there without doubt. Nick understood that he had crossed the line, his friend visibly not being able to endure any more of his jokes and teasing for today anymore. Now, now he needed to defuse the situation before even the fennec's fear of being seen while beating him wouldn't stop him anymore. It was time to apologize, he guessed.

Nick stared at his feet, sighed and then turned to look at his friend. "Come on, Fin, you know I didn't mean to infuriate you that bad. I'll make you a deal… I'll stop with the teasing for today. Not even one _tiny wittle_ bit, alright? We'll just finish our work without much talking and call it a day"-Nick tilted his head and attempted to look miserable-"come on pal, I'm sorry but you know me. I just can't help it sometimes," he finished with a small genuine smile.

"I don't give a shit if ya're sorry, ya red bastard… But we got work to do, ya'll get yo beatin' some other time." He threw his bat in the back of the van and went back into the driver's seat.

Nick knew that that was his friend's way of saying _I forgive you_ , so he just replied without any snarkiness due to his promise, "Thanks, buddy." At that moment the van's engine shot to life and the vehicle started moving, making Nick to instantly understand that Finnick was going to leave him behind. "Hey, Fin! Wait, you aren't considering… wait… _wait_ , Finnick!"

He sprinted, then jogged after the van, which was visibly keeping its distance at a considerable speed, but Nick wasn't going to let the midget fox leave him in the middle of nowhere. His legs were starting to prickle, but he persevered for quite a while, until the van finally stopped in the distance, with its doors loudly banging open. Nick spat the phlegm out of his throat and continued gasping loudly as he neared the perimeter of the tiny fox.

"Took ya long enough," sniggered the sandy fox with a drip of sarcasm in his voice and a small grin, but Nick could still see his displeasure that haunted him.

The red tod tried to chuckle but the need of air in his lungs was restricting him of doing so. He got close to the van and put his paws on his knees, breathing deeply as well as soundly. After he managed to recollect a bit of himself, he started with his sentences being chopped by sharp inhales, "Well, Fin… there were these two vixens… who stopped, heh… me, trying to get my… number, I mean… I know no one can resist me, even yo—…" Nick stopped himself before almost breaking his promise. "N-nevermind… I see you've unpacked… Pass… pass me that giant moneymaker."

Nick waited patiently. The fennec handed him the giant sweet and warned, "Try not to fall from the roof ya fool, don't wanna look after yo ass again like last time."

Nick turned in puzzlement at his friend and snorted from amusement. "Well it's good to know that even if you don't want to, you still will." Nick gave him a wink, heard a low growl, headed towards the roof of the nearby building and started climbing up the downspout, with the Jumbo-pop on his shoulder. He didn't have any problems because he had done it hundreds of times, and he was a fox after all, it just felt natural to him.

After getting to the roof, he put the giant sweet near the gutter, took out his sunglasses out of his breast pocket and sat on top of the red tiles, waiting the sun to do its sacred job and rework the giant sweet into liquid cholesterol.

* * *

Judy had stripped herself from her utilities, tho she had kept her kevlar vest on herself. She kinda enjoyed how it looked on her, eh, kinda a _lot_. The meter-maid vest had been chucked into her locker. That was the clothing she didn't want on herself at all. She was an officer of the law, not a maid of meters! But an officer needed food, especially after an encounter with Lieutenant Weaselton and Sergeant Songdog. She was in a sour mood and knew that the only thing that would make her feel better was food and food alone. All the bad things that had happened today, they just came one after another… Hope remained that there wouldn't be any more bad surprises, tho she didn't mind good ones. Good surprises would be good.

She thought that the worst was over for the day and started gathering her optimism back, even if it was a slow process. She was just going to go around the corner when she saw on the other side of the road the toddler fennec fox, who was still in his elephant costume, which got her interest. After all, she had helped him and his father to get a Jumbo-Pop from the prejudiced elephant clerk. The good she had done indeed had fueled her drive to push throughout the rest of the day, the feeling of righteousness and the defeat of those spiteful.

Heading towards him and crossing the road, she shouted, "Hey, little Toot-toot…" but lowered her voice and stopped moving, confused from what she was seeing. But where she had stopped was in the middle of the road. A loud car horn managed to spike her like electricity, and she jumped out of the way behind a parked car, her little heart starting to hammer against her ribs from the very expected event that had just transpired on the middle of the road. Well, for her, it was unexpected because she was in shock.

The fennec fox was filling jars with the liquid from the Jumbo-pop that was coming out of the downspout. On top of the roof, where the giant sweet was melting, lied Nick, apparently relaxing with his sunglasses on. She hid better behind that same car and kept watching, as she didn't know what was happening and wanted to understand, in the mean time trying to stay hidden while observing. There probably was an explanation to this, there had to be…

" _Ey, Nick, get yo fat ass down here. We're done,_ " shouted the sandy fox, which got the red vulpine's attention, and he got down the roof smoothly, sliding on some tiles and climbing down the downspout. When Judy heard the small fox's voice, she was disturbed and her nose started to act on its own. She couldn't believe such a small mammal to be capable of speaking so deep and loud, and was now sure that they were up to something. She was going to find out what. Especially after remembering how they had both appeared victims in that Jumbo-Pop shop. The small fox, Nick had told her that he was his son. No small kit on earth could have such a deep voice!

Feeling very angry and betrayed, she started pondering about how she would follow them without being seen, with a plan that needed to be improvised quickly, or she would lose them as they were now heading into the van and preparing to move out.

When she looked to her left, a relatively small vehicle caught her eye in which she could fit in, a vehicle that was heading her way as well. An idea immediately popped in her little head, thus she got her polished badge out her pocket and moved in front of the vehicle's path to stop it. "ZPD, halt!" she yelled and the driver complied. The bunny got to the car and entered it. "I'm sorry, Ma'am, but there is an ongoing investigation and I will need you to follow my orders and drive. The ZPD will appreciate your cooperation."

The driver was a white sheep and she looked extremely terrified. Judy knew she was off duty and didn't have the authority to do what she was doing right now, but she was angry and wanted to know the truth or even detain those two foxes if she could. The rabbit hoped that the sheep would buy her bluff and not ask too many questions.

"Do you see that orange van over there?" Judy asked and pointed forward to the now-in-motion van, van that was blowing dark smoke from the old and rusty exhaust, to which the sheep only nodded.

"Okay, now I want you to follow it but carefully as to not to be seen, _okay_?" The sheep nodded _sheepishly_ again and pressed on the gas.

* * *

That bunny was very determined. Nick couldn't believe that she was using somebody else's car to follow them. She could turn into a fine hustler… given the right circumstances.

"Ey, Nick, get yo stinkin' brain outa the shithole. That bunny cop is on our tails, are we gonna do nothin' 'bout it?" asked the small fox, sounding a little panicked and very aggressive. Well, he sounded aggressive almost regularly.

"Don't tell me you're scared, tough guy. And why should we? She doesn't have any dirt on us, so the only thing she can do is follow us around."

"And when she do, she'll see what we're doin', dumbass," barked the fennec.

The red vulpine sighed lightly. "Yes she will, but it doesn't matter. I've got it all covered, Fin, don't sweat it" -he gave the fennec a thumbs up- "it'll be a good experience for her as well. She isn't going to be a problem, don't worry. Just trust me on this, ok, buddy?" he explained confidently, which managed to reassure the small fox but his lips were still curled, which exposed his sharp teeth.

"If anythin' happens, I'm ditchin' ya, so ya know. I don't care if ya promise to suck me off. Ya got us in this mess, ya get yoself outa it."

Finnick stopped the van at their usual spot and went on to prepare the merchandise. Their spot was on the southwest part of the Tundratown wall, where temperatures were lowest because of the giant snowblowers positioned inside of the walls, which were blasting cold air and snow into the air constantly and only stopped if there was a malfunction or maintenance.

They both went on to work, creating pawprints in the snow, putting wooden sticks behind those fresh pawprints and filling them with the liquid, which was soon to be frozen-Jumbo-pop. After the product was ready for harvest, having taken the form of pawprints, they collected the treats and put them in a small refrigerator inside the back of Finnick's van. After finishing loading the product, they removed any leftover snow from their clothes and feet, entered the van and drove towards their next stop, that being Savanna Central.

The two foxes then stopped between Savanna Central and Downtown, near a Lemming's bank where they put their product. They managed to sell all of their pawpsicles that were devoured by most of the bank's lemming employees.

Then, they collected the used sticks that were thrown into the nearby trash bins and headed towards Little Rodentia, which was located in the southern part of the district close to the docks and Happytown. After arriving there and finding an active construction worksite, Nick managed to sell the small wooden sticks, saying that it was red wood to which the mouse foreman didn't ask too many questions and just took it, and with that Nick then went back to Finnick who was waiting for him in a rather clean alley outside Little Rodentia.

"Everything went smooth as ice. Let's see how much we made today." The red vulpine started counting the money and while doing so, his ears twitched, as they had detected steps behind him. He knew who that could be and that she would confront him at any given moment and _oo-ohh_ was he going to give her a piece of reality. "Alright, we made 250 today. That's 125 for you, as you've been a very good boy." Nick handed him the money which the small fox took harshly and jumped straight towards the red fox, hitting him hard in the stomach and making Nick grab it in surprise and pain.

"Ya broke yo promise shitface! Be glad I didn't have me bat with me, Wilde. Ya're a fuckin' walkin' circus, ya know that?"

Nick rubbed the spot where he was hit, stood up, and grinned madly with a swooshing tail behind him. "So no bye, bye kiss for daddy?"

He could see the attempt of his friend to try to look untouched by his teasing but his face was just priceless and the reactions were obvious that he was getting to him. He saw the fennec start walking away from him with a grunt but the small fox stopped for a moment and looked back. "Ya kiss me tomorrow, I'll bite yo face off!" he promised with uttermost sincerity, entered his van, flipped his finger towards the laughing red tod, and sped off with a few bangs that came from behind the old van in a manifestation of black and eye-stinging smoke.

 _Sorry, Fin, you're sometimes too much fun, I just can't help it._ He had almost forgotten that there was a crazy grey bunny stalking him just a few meters away, due to the heated teasing with Finnick, which made him jump in surprise when he turned around and saw a very angry-looking doe that had her paws on her hips and a right foot that was thumping the ground hard, which was kinda diminishing the angry effect she was probably trying to sustain.

"Well. I stood up for you, and you lied to me. You… you liar!" exclaimed the doe and Nick was baffled that she didn't utter a single curse, even after she had found that he had used her.

He grinned maniacally and retorted slickly, "It's called a hustle sweetheart." He wanted to see how determined she really was, knowing full well that she had followed him for 3 hours straight. But could she take more of it, now that, that he wanted to test and see. It seemed that there was some sunlight remaining, so he decided that he would head home, not minding if the bunny trailed him.

"And I'm not the liar, he is!" He pointed to his left which made her head to turn instantly at the deceptive direction, therefor he darted to the opposite one silently without her noticing.

He was almost behind the towering building, when he faintly caught her mutters, accompanied with rapid footsteps, which made it next to him in no time. That managed to impress him of her agility but he didn't bother to look at her until she declared, "That was pretty rude of you, Slick, but don't think you are getting away from me, because you are under arrest."

That made him stop and his heart to skip a beat, making his ears to fall slightly but just for a short amount of time, because he looked at her and saw that her badge was nowhere in sight, which meant that she was off duty and couldn't detain him legally. And even if she was on duty, what could she charge him for?

He saw her expression turn to one of satisfaction and that made him to grin and get her eyebrows to go up in confusion. "Oo-hh, really? Care to tell me for what I am being detained?" he implored and resumed walking, showing her that he wasn't buying her bluff.

She was again next to him and from the corner of his eye, he could see the look of incredible determination that was manifesting all around her. That actually made him curious and interested for a second but he smoldered those emotions. "Ge-ee, I don't know. How about selling food without a permit, transporting undeclared commerce across borough lines, false advertising..."

Nick pulled out of his pocket a certificate and put it in front of her face which made her stop talking. "Permit, receipt of declared commerce" -he flipped it both sides and put it in his pocket again- "and I did not falsely advertise anything. I see you did your homework, but that won't be enough," he deadpanned while still grinning and licking the sides of his mouth from time to time while his tail swooshed around with every step taken.

"You told that mouse the popsicles sticks were redwood!" she exclaimed, which made him snort and stop slowly.

"First of all, they are called pawpsicles. Get it? Because they look like paws" -he opened his paws widely and showed their insides- "and second…" -he handed her over the pawpsicle stick he was playing with the whole encounter- "I told that mouse that it was red wood. With a space in the middle. Wood that is red."

They were both at a crosswalk. On the other side of it there was a herd of wildebeests, a pretty big one. Nick looked to his side and saw an old porcupine. The decision was made that he was going to walk behind him, knowing that the herd on the other side would go around the walking quill pig and not trample him, not that they would care if they did while Judy was speechless, and he could see that she was still trying to gather her thoughts but what was there to probe more for. At that moment the light changed to green and the vulpine walked behind the porcupine, while Judy was still standing there, visibly thinking. He managed to brake her stupor when he added teasingly, "You can't touch me, Carrots. I've been doing this since I was born."

"You're gonna refrain from calling me Carrots," she returned angrily and unamused from behind him, getting him surprised again at her speed but then he swooshed his tail left and right, visibly taunting her but she didn't respond to that, so he slightly turned his head to her, while still walking behind his mode of safe escort.

"Now why would I do that? Aren't you from some little carrot-chocked Podunk?" he jabbed and was sure that she was indeed from somewhere out of the city. No one in their right mind would go after him after all if they were from the city.

"Uu-hm, no? I grew up in Bunnyburrow and it's a very significant place, as it produces a lot of food for Zootopia," she retorted grumpily, and he snickered because his observations were spot on.

They managed to cross the road without any incidents. "Okay, tell me if this story sounds familiar," he trailed off as they were nearing a food stand, that was on the sidewalk in the open, from which he sneakily took a few blueberries and plopped them into his maw, a decision that activated his receptors all around his wet tongue from the sweet feeling of the mind-melting nectar.

The stand owner didn't notice, the blueberries being out of his field of vision, thus Nick continued his stride confidently and without any worries. He heard the doe stop for a moment when he ate the blueberries and knew that she was about to try and stop him but the deed had been done and she couldn't do anything about that, which made him chuckle from her failed attempt.

He turned to look at her again and resumed, "Naïve little hick with good grades and big ideas decides: 'Hey, look at me, I'm gonna move to Zootopia, where predators and prey live in harmony and sing _Kymbaya_ " -he made a rainbow motion above himself with his two paws- "only to find that we don't get along at all" -a look of scorn was sent at the doe- "and that dream of becoming a big-city cop? Hah, she's a meter maid and nobody cares about her or her dreams. And soon enough those dreams die and our bunny sinks into emotional and literal squalor, living in a box under a bridge… Not that I have anything against that, mind you."

"Till, finally, she has no choice but to go back home with that cute _fuzzy-wuzzy_ tail between her legs"-he brushed his long and bushy tail against the ground to emphasize his point-"to become…. You're from Bunnyburrow, is that what you said" -he stopped before a dead-end where a fence was and turned to look at the speechless grey doe- "so how about a carrot farmer? Does that sound about right? It does sound pretty much like it to me," he finished and went through a hole in that same fence in front of them, thinking that would make her quit and let it go.

 _That should do it, I didn't lie to her, just told her the truth. She needs to know what she's getting herself into. It hurts, but it's better than being delusional._

But it seemed that the bunny was just not the usual mammal, not at all as he heard her go through the fence and jump around to which he turned around and saw a big elephant that almost crushed her but she was quick, very quick, and managed to get out of the way. He could see her madly twitching nose and just couldn't hold himself, "Be careful now, or it won't just be your dreams getting crushed," he quipped teasingly and began laughing wholeheartedly. In a matter of seconds he again felt her presence on his side but then she moved right in front of him, walking backwards and slowing hers as well as his pace.

" _Hold up!_ No one tells me _what_ I can or can't be" -her dissatisfaction at his ability in getting under her skin was very visible to the vulpine- "especially not some… jerk… who never had the guts to try and be anything more than a pawpsicle hustler," she continued her trek backwards and behind her, behind her was a worksite with wet cement as the small area was being repaired, and Nick saw that as an opportunity to embarrass and make her leave him alone. He kept on moving slowly, trying to make her step into the sticky trap.

But right before success was to be achieved, she just stopped abruptly but that didn't mean that he was going to stop as well. He took a step against her but she didn't budge. He knew that he could push her, but he wasn't such a mammal, not liking violence and knowing that she wasn't a mammal that really deserved it to begin with.

Someone doing it to themselves was fine by him. But him doing it to them was just not his thing, thus he sighed heavily, put his paws on his knees, and leaned closer to the grey doe, whose eyes were burning with incredible energy. "All right, look, everyone comes to Zootopia thinking they can be anything they want. Well, you can't. You can only be what you are," he explained and pointed to himself, "Sly and cunning fox," then to Judy, "dumb bunny."

"I'm not a dumb bunny," she huffed and glared daggers at him, not backing up from her seemingly immovable spot.

She indeed looked more… cemented, in the meaning he was disappointed in.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	2. Stubbornness

**Chapter Two**

 **Stubbornness**

It was late eve, Zootopia was getting darker and darker with every passing minute. There weren't as many mammals on the streets anymore. The sun's rays were being reflected on the giant skyscrapers' countless windows, which made them even more astonishing, a sight not to be missed. But two mammals, a certain red fox and grey bunny couldn't care less for the shiny colossal giants. The grey doe was being entirely concentrated on the red fox's presence, watching his every move and not wanting him to get away like he had a few minutes ago, and the red fox just not caring to bother look at the sight he had seen hundreds of times.

"I'm not a dumb bunny," she glared at him and crossed her arms, feeling deeply insulted from the demeaning words of intended provocation, and the worst was that he chuckled with a very annoying smirk. "What's so funny?" she asked quizzically in irritation but still keeping her angry expression.

Nick looked at her, smirking even wider. "You're just too cute, Carrots, even when you're angry," he answered and began walking down the sidewalk, maneuvering by the repair site, and trying not to step on the spilled wet cement around it, cement which could've been a change of fate if she had just made that one crucial step, a step of irreversible futility but who could tell if it was for the best or worst. Only time and time itself.

For Judy, being called cute was great slander when said from species not from her own. She was trying all day to keep her anger in check, when civilians and colleagues called her cute, but bottling it up had its price, and it seemed that it was Nick who was going to pay for it, even if he wasn't willing to.

She ran after and got in front of him again, making him stop. She raised her paw and pointed a finger towards his chest, poking him with her small beige claws when wanting to emphasize on a given point or word while she talked, "I don't think you've seen me- _angry_ , Wilde! But if you call me cute _one_ -more- _time_ , you definitely will. And I promise- _you_ , it won't be pleasant even- _one_ - _BIT_."

Her last poke was harder than the rest as she tried to show him that the newly made promise wasn't a joke. She kept looking at his green eyes, waiting for an answer but he stood silent and stared at her dumfounded. Why was he behaving as such, didn't he understand her? She was going to repeat herself but stopped because his mouth began moving.

"Whoaw, _whoaw_ , you're serious now?" Nick asked in slight bewilderment and scratched his head in visible confusion. "Of all the words in the world, you get worked up by the only one that actually is positive? Now," -he chuckled without breaking eye contact- "that's a first, Carrots. As I said, you seem to be full of surprises," he snickered but didn't move and refocused his attention on the grey doe before him, hinting with his body language that he was waiting for an answer from her.

"Haven't you met any rabbits in your life. You've lived in this city for how long now?" she played along, not entirely believing that he was being truthful at that very moment.

"My entire life. And of course I have but most of them haven't cared or have stayed away from me because I'm a _fox_ ," he explained nonchalantly and probably awaited a retort.

Judy was annoyed at her new nickname, which she knew he had forged to infuriate her, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of pleasing him with her reactions. But calling her cute, now that was a whole new page, and she wouldn't let him off the hook if he did it again. There would be consequences. She figured that it won't hurt if she explained it to him, as he looked genuinely astonished.

"It's a degenerative term… if a bunny calls another bunny cute than it's meant by its actual context. But if someone from other species calls you cute than it's meant as an insult. Meaning that you're looking weak, meek, and good for nothing but farming and making kits… It's like calling you sly…" -she paused for a moment, thinking it through- "you wouldn't like that, would you now?" she finished and awaited his answer, thinking that he would go on the defensive. Instead, he was wide-eyed for several moments but then, then his face recovered his neutral expression.

"Ah, I get it now, Fluff. So you don't like others telling you things you don't like to hear. But then again, why're you here if you can't take it?" His face was one filled with seriousness, something she hadn't seen since ever. "Do you think that they won't take advantage of that and try make you feel awful, useless, and unappreciated?" His voice had tuned on a note that had this hidden pain within that carried the symphony of the accompanied words.

"They'll use whatever means necessary to stomp you… and if they find out that they can get to you by calling you _cute_ , they will. And if you can't keep yourself in check, that'll get you into a lot of trouble…" The words sounded too consistent for her to try and talk back, as if they were coming from the heart and his experience which was managing to link to hers in sort of a way and it was letting her guard down.

"Ah, you asked me how I'd feel if you called me _sly_? I'd be flattered! There's nothing better than the truth. And the truth is that I'm a sly, cunning, lying, and shifty _fox_ … The sooner you accept who you are, the better you'll feel about it, and you won't get worked up by others' opinion," he explained with hints of enthusiasm and, by clasping his paws together, he motioned his leave. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm tired, and I've got a bus to catch," he closed with a deadpan and began slugging confidently towards the nearby bus stop.

Judy didn't react instantly and just stood still, as she was processing what he had told her just now. He had made her another nickname but that could wait, as she was more focused on his message's meaning than on his teasing remarks. She knew what he was talking about, remembering her teenage years, memories which got her to frown.

Still, all the things he had said were like he had gone through them, experienced them himself. Did that mean he wasn't like he was right now? She wanted to find out and understand him, but as she got back to reality, he wasn't in front of her, which panicked and got her to start searching for him in jitteriness.

Managing to spot him sitting on a bench at a bus stop just behind her, she sprinted towards it and stopped right in front of him… again. "Yes, Carrots? You've enjoyed my company so much that you couldn't live without me for 5 seconds, that it? I must say, I'm _touched_ ," he joked sarcastically, snickering at his own joke.

She couldn't understand how he could be dead-serious at a given moment, than a total clown at the other. In order to get him to talk genuinely again, she needed to beat him at his own game, which wasn't going to be easy, but she was going to try. "Don't get over yourself, Wilde." What Judy said next managed to make the fox etched and she took that as a hint that she could get something out of him. "What've you gone through to have such a pessimistic view on the world?" she drilled directly, not wanting to beat around the bush.

His ears went flat to his skull and his expression turned sullen. Tho he managed to put his mask of indifference right away, it didn't go unnoticed or unnoted by the grey doe. "Now, now. If you're going to ask such a personal question, you'll have to buy me a drink first," he countered with a wink, making her to huff in response.

"I'm being serious here! What happened to you. You weren't like this at all… right?" she guessed with a hint of uncertainty and impatience in her voice as the want for information was great, curiosity replacing her goal of catching the vulpine. But he looked reluctant to talk about it, his scowl being blatantly visible to her curious eyes. It meant that he had closed himself in and that the luck was pressed too hard.

Knowing that he definitely didn't trust her enough to talk about this, she tried to change the topic to something else. As she was about to continue with the change of topic, Nick beat her to it but in the form of visible want of closure to their conversation. "Just... just go home. It's getting late," he muttered tiredly and sighed.

"These streets at night aren't a place for a c—… little bunny like yourself." He didn't have any sarcasm in his voice, only sadness.

Judy's blood began boiling because of him being bias towards her again, and she just couldn't take it anymore. She got impulsive and spat things that normally she wouldn't ever utter in a normal conversation, her bottled emotions from the day flooding out like overpressured steam. "Why are you such a bigot! Do you like to antagonize other mammals so bad and make fun of them all the time. Does that bring you joy and make you happy? It seems like it," she finished while pointing her finger at him with a slight tremor in her paw and heavier breathing than usual.

"Look who's talking," he shoved, growling and flashing his teeth instantly.

Judy flinched as she detected his sudden change in behavior, and didn't have a single clue to why he was reacting in such a manner. The things she had said were her observation of how he was acting towards her. It was what she saw, heard and felt. She couldn't be wrong, so she pressed on. "Excuse me? How are you saying that I'm prejudiced when I've not even once said anything to insult you without purpose, unlike you." Judy crossed her arms while her right foot was becoming gradually self-aware.

"I didn't show you hate and all I got in return was mockery and jokes. I even helped you and your friend at the ice-cream shop. And what did I get in return? I got hustled… Thanks a lot, Wilde! For stereotyping me, mocking me, laughing at me, and trying to make me feel like a useless mammal," she started with voice filled with anger, but then it toned down to one of sorrow because what she was expressing was from the frustration bottled during the day, which she unloaded on Nick. He was guilty on some of those charges but they weren't that severe. She was actually talking about her co-workers, her boss, her family…

Nick raised one of his brows and leaned towards her with a disbelieving look. "Hah! You helped us because of pity! And I know you had your doubts because of us being foxes. You wouldn't have followed us into the shop if you weren't suspicious of us now, would you?"

He got her there, she did follow him because he looked suspicious and partly because he was a fox, yet she was right, he was up to no good. "Of course, that's why I followed you. Because you were sneaking! No one up to no good does that and you know it," she answered and uncrossed her arms, showing him that she had nothing to hide.

"So if you saw a bunny sneaking around, you'd follow them and have suspicions that they were up to no good?"

"Well…" she stopped to think about it, not wanting to say something she would regret." I'd follow them if they acted like you did. So I don't see the difference if it was a fox or a bunny. On top of that, you were up to something and I was right. So don't play the victim card…" Her foot tapped the ground in arisen annoyance at his attempt to steer the rudder in another direction.

"I don't know who you're trying to lie to here, Fluff. I've got tons of experience and you're plain obvious. It was pretty clear why you followed me into the shop" -he curled his lips but Judy wasn't moved- "stop contradicting yourself and accept who you are... A _prejudiced_ bunny," he finished with a bleak expression and a disapproving scoff.

"What are you talking about?!" she exclaimed, not knowing what she did or was doing wrong. Why did he think she was lying, what did she do to make that impression. Her right leg again started thumping the ground from frustration and the fox saw that.

"Stop playing that dumb bunny stereotype. You said you hated it anyways." The taut in his voice was very noticeable and that made Judy even more perplexed, which got her to feel extreme confusion within her mind, as if something was pulling her thoughts down and disarranging them.

She didn't know what to think. Was he joking with her? What was his game? Was this some kind of mockery? But he wasn't showing any of his smug self, and his body was not betraying any hidden emotions. "Just tell me what you're talking about, stop being so cryptic and spit it out!" -she started pulling her drooped black-tipped ears in front of her face in frustration- "I really don't have any idea why you think of me like that!?"

There was this utter bewilderment, while his eyes scanned her from ears to toes and it didn't seem as if he was toying with her which was chilling her blood and making her restless of what was to come as a continuation. His breath was non-existent for some amount of time until he exhaled sharply and disclosed, "Oh for blueberries' sake, it's your fox repellant!"

Her whole body froze and her nose began twitching. She had forgotten that disgusting thing on her all day, and she was talking about herself not being prejudiced, while showcasing quite the opposite. All day she had asked herself why was she receiving all this hate and now, now everything was being pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle. It was karma, and that made her mad. Why did she even take this from her parents? Did she believe that foxes and predators were dangerous and untrustworthy?

Her confidence was dropping rapidly because of her now-poisoned consciousness, which's infection was starting to spread fast, thus making her question her beliefs and herself. Anxiety made her feel uncomfortable inside of her police blues, and the light kevlar vest was now as if rocks were stringed around her chest. Her body was flushing because of her incredible nervousness and anger at herself while her right leg, that was thumping the ground, increased its speed and one could say that if she kept it up, it would dig a hole into the stone slabs but it suddenly stopped.

No, she didn't take the repellant because she hated foxes, she took it because her parents would be worried for her and wouldn't have given her a moments rest if she didn't. She deserved what had happened to her today because of her fault with the metal canister but now, now there were more important matters at paw. She wanted to show Nick that she wasn't who he thought she was. But was she scared by him? Yes, yes she was.

But why? She was a trained officer, one that could easily disable him if the need arose. Disable was a very weak word to be used in her arsenal of capabilities which she had acquired by the extensive amounts of dedicated trainings.

Judy saw his displeasured stance as well as his disapproval. He wasn't in the wrong tho, he had every right to be angry about it. But her anger probably exceeded his, the blood inside her veins starting to get uncomfortably warm. "I know that you are scared from this _biiig_ _baaad_ fox, so just get going before he… EATS YOU!" he shouted strongly as he jumped off the bench and got in front of her face while growling, showing his teeth, raising his shackles, and pointing his obsidian claws towards her.

The sight looked extremely terrifying, he looked psychotic and wild but she knew he was acting because he was just too clever to do something idiotic. But even so, he managed to fire up her instincts, getting her nose to twitch madly and change her scent to one of fear while her heart raced at the speed of light and her mind was yelling at her to run, to flee. It was instinctive and primal and she knew what to do. Reaching with her paw, she unstrapped her holster and grabbed the fox repellant very swiftly.

That triggered an immediate reaction from Nick, his fur raising from shock and eyes filling with dread which got him to immediately try to defuse the dangerously-looking for him situation as he moved away from her and hit the bench with his back. "F-f-fluff! D-don't do anything r-reckless. I was j-joking, don't take it so… s-serious-sly."

She hadn't thought that Nick would interpret her move as such and made an adorable snort, the comical sight slightly calming her on-edge nerves. Then, with all her might, she threw the canister of grief to the ground, denting it quite a bit. As it stopped rolling around, she stomped it with two hard kicks, crushing it, but not enough to get it to leak, and went to throw it in the nearby trash bin.

As she got back, Nick was now sitting in his previous spot and was looking at her in amusement, she had shown him who she truly was. It filled her with hope for betterment. "So now. How will you defend yourself if this _murderous_ fox wants to know the taste of bunny, huh?"

But his snarky attitude didn't seem to phase her even one bit, she actually smiled. "I don't need anything else to beat your furry butt, Wilde. Would you like a presentation?"

Before he could respond, she lunged at him, which panicked him immensely, but instead of doing what he probably thought she would, her butt positioned itself on the bench as she sat close to him but her eyes didn't even blink as the sight before her was just priceless.

Nick had scrunched his face with paws in front of it as well as legs and the tension was visible all around him. She wanted to laugh but she didn't want to ruin the bluff and when he opened his eyes and removed a paw so he could see, she pushed her body forwards as if she was going to jump him again but he only glared at her with slight disapproval yet a smirk managed to creep onto him very swiftly.

But then she scooped closer to him and his smirk fell, like led in water, with his reaction being of moving himself away from her and she understood that the closeness was making him uncomfortable, thus she repeated the motion several more times until Nick groaned and rubbed his muzzle in the form of irritated submission which was expected and unexpected at the same time.

" _Oo-hh_ , is the big bad fox scared of the cute _wittle_ bunny?" she quipped and moved even closer, but this time, touching him and that visibly unnerved him, yet he didn't fight back and just sighed heavily after which he snorted.

"You're learning, Fluff, I see that my corruption is starting to take hold of you. _Sooon_ you are going to be the ring leader of _ze_ criminal underworld, mark _mein_ words!"

She rolled her eyes and nudged him in the ribs with a small amount force, making him wince and chuckle afterwards. A comfortable silence befell upon them, making Judy to start registering her surroundings, more specifically: the fox adjacent to her. She could feel the heat radiating from him, making the dropping of the day's temperature a little more bearable. She also was detecting a certain odor that she had rarely encountered before. It didn't take her much to figure it out. It was the smell of predator, the smell of fox, the smell of musk. At first, it was overwhelming as she had just several times experienced such a scent before but not in such intensity, as she had never been that close to a predator, let alone a fox, which got her to cough.

As she restrained herself from the involuntary coughing, she felt the same uncomfortable feeling, a feeling she had when Nick tried to intimidate her just a minute ago. It was fear: primal and strong. Her instincts were telling her that she was in danger, near her natural enemy. They were telling her to flee, hide, do whatever she had to survive. The feeling started growing stronger and that changed her scent again, making her nose to act on its own and her paws to cross in front of her with slight trembles.

Nick noticed the change in scent right away and looked at her with raised eyebrows after which he sighed sadly and began, "Listen Ju… Carrots. I know you're afraid of me, don't hide it. This fox here has been called and treated worse and doesn't get _affected_ anymore."

His lie was caught easily as Judy's awareness was very sharp due to her heightened instincts, which caught the strain in his voice when he delivered his small hustle. That got her to feel down, knowing what she was showcasing again as the exact same opposite of what she was contradicting a few minutes ago. The knowledge that her instincts were restricting her and making her small-minded enraged her. She hated feeling as a weak and meek prey. No, she didn't hate it, she resented it. Why was she allowing something ancient to control her actions, thoughts, and feelings. Wasn't she above it all, wasn't that the reason mammals had evolved? The lack of control made her feel dumb and she decided that enough was enough.

Nick was about to say something else, when Judy pushed herself into him hard, there wasn't any more space between them, she had closed it and was now glued to him. Before he could object, she began talking. "Ahm… I know you know… that I'm frightened by you… I _mean_ … it's pretty obvious, _heh_ … It isn't on my own volition…" She caressed one of her drooped ears that was over her shoulder.

"And I'm sorry if I made you feel hurt… _ughm_ —it's my foolish instincts that are part of me. I can't just remove them as you know… and I hate them. They restrain me and don't let me be my best… well… me," she finished while looking at him with guilt and smiled awkwardly but as no reaction was received she looked at her thighs and sighed sadly, knowing full well that this had surprised him and that this was an opportunity to get closer to him and build the foundations.

"Do you remember what I said in front of the Jumbo-pop?" she added sadly and waited for an answer, but as none came because of the fox's dazed state, she nudged his arm, pulling him back to reality.

"You said: _the only thing you have to fear is fear itself._ Now, my _old_ memory may be betraying me, so I'm not very sure," he quipped, grinning and giving her a side look to which she rolled her eyes in annoyance at his smugness.

"Are you always like this…" -she hit her forehead in irritation- "you know what, don't answer that… And yes, that's what I said."

But to her words came what was expected of him, he seemed to always deliver when it wasn't wanted. "Am I always like this? Yes, yes I am. Did I have to answer that? No, no I didn't" -that got her to grumble- "are you going to tell me now what you wanted to or not, Officer Fluff?" His theatrics made her to mutter _dumb fox_ under her breath and she saw his ears to twitch but because he didn't retort that meant that he hadn't heard her.

"Yes, that's correct and I will, you _insufferable_ fox! And they say rabbits are impatient…" she huffed sharply from her diminishing annoyance. "If you fear something, what's the best way to get over that fear? To expose yourself as much as possible to it, so you'd become accustomed to its presence and get used to it slowly. "She repositioned herself and saw from the corner of her eyes that his claws tapped on his thighs but she chose to just continue. "It's the same with you. If my instinctive reaction is to cower before you, I can battle it by doing the exact opposite. By staying in your presence," she explained calmly and smiled at him with rapidly-blinking eyes.

The explanation pulled some good memories from her mind that filled the inside of her body with fluttering, which was greatly appreciated in the stifling warmth of the city and air all around. The memory was so vibrant, it was a major point in her life where things could've taken a wrong turn yet they hadn't as her choice was steered at the bright and rightful path that had led her to where she was standing at, an achieved dream which she had longed about for so long, a dream which's path had had been riddled with sacrifices and pain.

But Nick, being Nick, didn't waste the opportunity to not joke on her behalf. "Listen, Fluff… as I am ok with all this… maybe… maybe we're going too far. I know I'm irresistible and alluring but, hey! I'm a shy fox… and usually don't bed with strangers—"

"Wha—"

"—on the first night... second… _meeeh_ ," he finished, while Judy blushed and looked away, but she didn't move away because of her reluctance to betray her words. "I-I-t-t's n-not, I-I-I d-didn't mean _that_ … you…you… dumb _f-fox_!" managing to say a whole sentence, she turned back, glaring at the vulpine angrily as she understood what he had done.

At her inability to talk without stuttering, the fox laughed wholeheartedly. "Ah- _oh_ -yeah, you're too much fun, _oh_ -hah- _eh_."

She wanted to get him back, and tried thinking of a way but it was short lived. The red vulpine sat up and went to the curb, the heat from his body gone, and the scent of musk now fading away. She felt rather disappointed, not exactly knowing why, so she dismissed the thoughts as swiftly as they came.

"As fun as it was, Carrots, I gotta bounce," he tried to say his goodbye by giving her a sideway glance after which he turned his back on her and waited for the bus.

But she wasn't satisfied with their interaction and went to his side agilely. "You're not getting away from me, Slick! Not until you've answered my question," she declared vigilantly and glared at him, showing that she wasn't going to back off from her choice.

His body managed to betray his pondering as he was silent for a moment too long. "Suit yourself. I don't have much to offer for hospitality, if that's what you are counting on." He winked at her just as the bus came to a stop in front of them.

"What, _no_... who do you take me for-" but before she could finish, the vulpine jumped through the opened doors. "Hey, wait!"

After entering, she searched for the red fox and as she managed to spot him at the ticket machine, she headed towards him. The bus wasn't very full, but it seemed that all the seats were taken and most spots where the iron grips were located were occupied. Before she could reach Nick, he turned around and began walking back, stopping right in front her and blocking the path. "Could you move away, I have to buy a ticket," she asked friendlily but the fox stood still, not moving a centimeter.

Nick stood there, looking at her with a bleak expression and taking his time until he smirked and answered, "Oh? I don't think so."

The answer came as an extreme surprise for her, which drooped her ears, and she looked at him wrathfully but before anything would come out of her mouth, he got what she desired from out his pocket and extended his paw to hers. "It's the least this handsome fox could do for getting you hustled."

Not hesitating, she took it, not seeing any reason not to and moved back, as she saw his non-verbal gesture. It was a small gesture that was relatively appreciated. They went to the center of the bus, and Nick managed to find a spot with an iron bar to hold on to. Judy on the other paw could not, as all the other spots seemed to have been taken. She kept looking around and at that, the red vulpine took notice, smirking mildly in response.

"Just take my paw, I know that's what you're thinking." He grinned and wiggled his brows for effect.

She was getting very annoyed at his antics, but seeing that she couldn't grab onto anything else, she figured if he would tease her, the same could be done to him. Instead of grabbing his forepaw, she seized his fur and pulled it, thus making him yelp and grimace in pain. "Argh-h-h, not the fur… _C-Carrots_ … OW!"

She giggled, satisfied with the outcome and changed her position to a more comfortable one for him and her, which managed to get some unfriendly stares from the passengers, but no one said anything directly because they probably just didn't care enough. That was what tiredness did to mammals.

A few minutes passed in uncomfortable silence. Judy didn't want to ask Nick the questions she had, knowing full well that they were for some place more private, or he wouldn't even bother to answer her, so she figured a small talk would do it. Her foot tapped the floor of the vehicle and she looked around the interior where she saw a poster about a Gazelle concert that was to come sometime that week ' _Try Everything_ ', it read but as she skimmed all that was written, her eyes tried to find something else to distract her as the uncomfortable oral silence was starting to heavily get to her, the only disturbers being light coughs of passengers and the rumbling engine in the back of the heavy vehicle, which was audibly accelerating, its gears grinding and bashing inside the cylinders of the old behemoth that spewed black and solid smoke from the opened mouth of the vibrating exhaust.

She knew that Nick was tired and didn't want to talk much as he wasn't starting a conversation, which was definitely derived from that exhaustion and probable annoyance with her constant curiosity but she had to get him comfortable, his personality had definitely grabbed her. "Sooo… _ehm_ … where exactly are we going, if iiit's not a secret?"

His fatigue was instantly replaced with a grin and he returned, " _Ahh_ , aren't you a curious one. The place is just out of town."

His response was short and his eyes moved away from her but because he hadn't asked anything nor implied such a thing with his words, she twitched her mouth and tried to get his tongue untied, " _Aaaand_?"

He sighed in annoyance and tried to pull away his paw, probably to scratch himself but she was holding onto it and as he realized, a snort burst into existence with his words following pretty quick. "It's in the Meadowlands… Probably a 20 minute ride to my… I guess our stop."

The answer surprised the doe. There wasn't anything there but wilds. She remembered from her geography classes that the Meadowlands were vast amounts of grass plains and forests, there were some cities, well not cities, more like villages which were scattered far off from each other. "Why are you living in the middle of nowhere?"

He was silent, looking at his feet for some seconds, seemingly thinking about his response and as he took his time, she looked through the window behind her and could see that they were just getting off the bridge that connected Zootopia with the mainland. The ocean was visible with ships sailing about but they got obscured when the elevation of the terrain began lowering, thus hiding the view with the mounds of dirt and grass.

"It's a place where I don't have to hear comments about us _foxes_ or us predators. No loud neighbors, no loud streets… no mammals. The only sounds you can hear are when the wind blows and planes pass over… Those planes are damn annoying… _Ahh_ … but at night… you should know… the crickets are _pure_ bliss. Oh, and don't get me started on the night sky, you can't see that while in Zootopia, there is just too much light and commotion…"

As he was talking, she saw that he had a dreamy look. She knew what he was talking about, having lived on a farm. Memories entered her mind of the relaxing and filled with wonder nights outside.

 _But why did he move away?_ As she got to the city, it was way more exciting, the bustling streets, flashy lights, countless commotions. It was so lively, unlike her hometown where the only thing that happened from time to time were the occasional fights and accidents on farms, which was what most mammals talked about all the time. It was fun at first but with time it was just clogging the mind, it was nothing new, it was stale and bleak.

" _Lying fox…_ " a female kangaroo that was seated not far from them murmured with a hostile glare.

But Judy caught the notes of hate and before she could stop herself, she shouted very threateningly, "Mind your own business!" Her shout grabbed the female's attention and she seemed surprised from being caught, while the other passengers moved their eyes on Judy's position because of the small commotion she had just created. Even Nick was looking at her with surprise, probably not having heard what the female had said under her breath but things like that just didn't slip by Judy, not with her sensitive and radar-like ears.

Her glare was drilling the kangaroo who at last felt uncomfortable and looked away which managed to at least put Judy slightly at ease, yet whispering began that started bothering her but she couldn't get head on with all of the mammals in the bus, well she could but right now she wanted to get to know a certain red fox who was still looking at her with curiously-raised eyebrows. "When did you move to live outside the city?"

Her question that was delivered in a friendly tone as well as a smile got Nick to shake his head in understanding and to answer, " _Ah-h_ … I don't really remember exactly. Must be like… _e-h-h_ I don't know, maybe… 4… no… 5 years ago, more or less?"

"But why did you move?" She knew why, he had said it indirectly and accidently, but in order to make him open up, she needed to make him say it voluntarily and not the other way around.

The question made one of the vulpine's brows to go up in confusion. "I… I told you _already_?"

"You explained me what you liked about the place, not the actual reason for moving away. Living in the city would be better for you. You wouldn't have to travel all the way to it every single day. You'd have more time to make your hustles, meaning more money." She gave him a glare to show her disapproval." Yet, you choose not to, so there has to be a bigger reason then what you've already told me." But as she thought that he would acknowledge his actual reason, the mask of indifference was put on again, making him unreadable and unreachable.

"Not here, not now," was all he mumbled, barely audible and rather bitter-sounding.

Thank God for Judy's exceptional hearing. She took the hint and stopped trying to poke around.

They rode the bus for the next twenty minutes, initiating small talk on subjects about life in the city as well as recent news. As the bus came to its next stop, Nick walked out with a curious bunny behind him. She saw that the bus stop in question didn't even have a sign indicating its existence.

Around her were green hills with overgrown grass, weeds, and a thick forest that could be seen but there were no houses, no buildings and no mammals but them and them alone. It was a very good place for a mammal to disappear or get kidnapped but she didn't seem to care about that really, having confidence in her abilities and wanting to find out more about the mysterious red fox towards whom interest was starting to fester like an open wound.

Nick kept walking towards a dirt road that lead further out of civilization, while Judy tried to spot everything around her as to remember how to get back and not get lost. There was this abandoned tractor that had been overtaken by nature as there were plants in the engine compartment as well as weeds that were growing from its ruined seat. The vehicle was very rusty and one of its massive tires was missing yet it looked rather beautiful and she couldn't really understand why.

What was so beautiful about nature taking what was hers, why did the decomposition and death of mammals' touch look so normal and even inviting. Could the answer be that everything mammals had created was artificial, could the fakeness and plasticity be what was supposed to stop and cease to exist?

Maybe. Maybe exactly that was going to mark the beginning, the beginning of the end.

After 10 minutes, they neared what looked like an abandoned airfield with one still-standing hangar and decaying fences, while the other hangars were just a pile of rubble and overgrown vegetation. Before the airfield, there was a bridge: it was half-made from cobblestone and the other half of past-red and now brownish bricks; its railing was consistently from rocks, and it had moss on every surface and crevice; everything accompanied by a small river going underneath the bridge itself in a slow and soothing fashion.

As they neared it, Judy saw on the other side of the river's bank a foldable chair with a blanket on its backside; a medium sized barrel which had rust all over its body, while inside, it was blackened by previous fires; a decent-sized log; and some bags with unknown properties. It looked like to Judy that someone was there not long ago.

As they crossed the bridge, instead of continuing forwards, Nick took a turn to the right and headed towards the river's bank, confusing Judy so much that she stopped moving entirely, as she was trying to figure out what was going on. Was he living under a bridge? Was he homeless? Questions that needed answering, and she wanted them right now. Climbing down to the edge of the bank, she saw Nick gathering leftover trash and firewood, which he then started throwing into the rusty barrel that was near the chair and a long old log. She got close and waited for him to finish whatever he was doing, so they could have a conversation, a conversation she craved for with great anticipation since the bus stop craziness.

As he finished his work, he dusted off his paws and turned around to look at his overenthusiastic companion. "Make yourself comfortable, Fluff. There is at least another hour of daylight left." He pointed at the log as he sat on his chair while she didn't immediately follow his request, but after a hard sigh she went to it, sat and got herself comfortable, as much as it was possible of course.

"I guess you have a lot of questions. I know, I'm an interesting mammal. I'll answer them truthfully but then…" He grinned and that kinda unnerved her. "I'm going to need you to return the favour. Do we… have a deal?"

It was like he was reading her mind, thus her fur stood up on end, her legs moved around and her eyes opened widely in excitement. Trying to hide her excitement and not wanting give the vulpine motives for teasing, she returned as normally as she could. "Deal."

Nick started removing the buttons of his green shirt, as he probably wanted to get comfy, which exposed his creamy fur on top of his chest and embarrassment struck Judy like a truck as her ears started generating more heat than usual. "Y-you are n-n-not removing your s-shirt… _right_?" she asked innocently which made the fox laugh mid-way from removing another button.

"I wasn't going to but if you insist, I won't deny your request!"

Nick reached for his next restrictor but as he was going to unbutton it, Judy cried out, "NO… I mean…stop doing…I don't, just… just leave it be _o-okay_?" she spluttered shyly, not used to being in such situations and feeling the blush overtaking her warming body that was lightly squirming on the dried log. Her heart had doubled its rate and that had created the need for her lungs to seek more energy. She tried not to look at him but knew that he was probably grinning or snickering, yet her embarrassment was stronger and she had slightly closed herself off.

"Okay, you had some questions, shoot," he inserted after some moments of uncomfortable silence while scratching the fur under his neck with his pointy claws.

"W-w-why _ar_ … Why are you living here, Wilde?" Was the first thought that crossed her mind, mind that was attempting to take control back from the bashfulness that had just transpired.

"Well, because it's secluded, quiet and… well… beautiful. Those are perks I can't have if I lived in the city. "

"But what's your main reason? On the bus you said you'll tell me later. Now is later." She made him ponder on the question again.

"Because…" -he sighed- "I wanted and want to stay _away_ from other mammals... Why would I want to stay around others when they don't like me... And it's not just because of me being a fox, it doesn't matter what species you are… Mammals are _assholes_ ," -he frowned in visible discontent- "I don't want to see dirty looks, hear mean comments, be careful not to get beaten every single day of my life when I can avoid it by just living _away_ from them," he explained somberly with his mask pulled off, an explanation that was given with emotion and hidden hurt.

Truth.

It was as if he was beginning to open up, as if she was not a threat no more, which was feelingly enriching her blood with more energy but when he began playing with a tuft of his fur, she saw sadness upon his expression and some kind of vulnerability as he pulled one leg and hugged it with his free paw. Seeing him crestfallen surprised her, he was hurting inside even if the denial was strong because the body always showed the truth when the words tried to hide it.

It was clear that she was being let in and even if it was just for a small amount of time, she didn't care, it was progress. The next question came in mind and she didn't know if he was going to answer it but pressed her luck, nevertheless. "Were you always like this, Nick?" she probed, using his first name for the first time since they met, thus making the fox's ears to flick instantaneously and his face to morph into wide grin.

"So" -he snickered with vigor- "you said it at last. I was wondering if you had forgotten it" -she rolled her eyes with a small but genuine smile- "and to continue answering your pop-quiz… _No_ … I wasn't always like this…" -his look became distant for a very small moment- "I used to be like you once, tried to find work and live my life normally… You wanna know what happened? I got the same attitude I receive right now from the mammals I met… So instead of trying to be someone else and waste my energy, I just became what everyone thinks of me of being."

She didn't see any signs that he was lying because he had yet again spoken emotionally, without humor that she had found out he used to mask his actual thoughts and feelings. She couldn't understand why he had quit tho, why had he chosen to be somebody he actually wasn't and why not fight for his rightful place instead of yielding. "But if you gave them time and let them get to know you, they would've done otherwise! Why did you quit?!"

The vulpine stared at her in calculation, then moved his head towards the horizon and closed his eyes as he inhaled the fresh air that was absent in Zootopia. " _Simple_. If they don't care, why should I?"

Judy couldn't believe what she was hearing. It was as if she was seeing herself in him if she had decided to surrender, it made her desperately to want to help him like she had been in the past. "But change starts with you!" she almost yelled, startling him a bit.

"It does, but this fox," -he pointed at himself- "doesn't care anymore."

She could see that this wasn't going anywhere, it seemed that Nick had gone through a lot and had already made up his mind, and she wondered what to ask next. It took her around a minute, and Nick used that time to get an insect sandwich out of one of the bags which he began devouring. Seeing his teeth crushing the small insects and consuming the food brought her instincts back up and running which got her extremely agitated again. But this time, this time she didn't let them roam free and moved as close as possible to Nick, going to the end of the log itself.

After a moment of nervously moving her body left and right, something popped up in her quick-thinking head and she pressed hard, "How can you live with yourself after you steal other mammals' money. You could be ruining their lives with your scams." She thought that this is where she would nail and make him reconsider his position, but it seemed that the world had other plans because he was looking at her with a real smile as if the question was even expected.

"Prejudice, Fluff… _careful_ ," he answered playfully.

"W-w-what—" she only managed to stutter before he raised his clawy finger.

"Do you really think I scam whoever I come across? I'm not that heartless! Of course when I see some poor mammal, I don't go trying to pull their last dime out of their pockets. I don't even bother with them as they don't deserve to be treated like that. Now, on the other paw, if I see some rich hick walking around like they own the place. Trust me when I say this. After the sham is over, I feel such _happiness_ that I can't even describe it to you."

"Have I ruined that rich hick's life? No, no I haven't. Do they care that I scammed them? No, no they don't, because they are too stupid to even find out or are too rich to even care!" he explained and went on with his food, moving his eyes away from the bunny who now seemed as if she had something stuck in her windpipe.

She didn't have a good counter-argument, only in the eye of the law and morality it wasn't right.

 _He may not be doing anything severe, but it isn't RIGHT._ But as she heard, the vulpine didn't care less for the law and had different kinds of morals. Then another very good question popped in her little head of hers. "Do you even pay your taxes?"

That made the vulpine flinch which didn't go unnoticed by Judy. He removed some crumbs off his lap and cleared his throat. "That depends to whom I'm talking. Is it to Officer Fluff or Carrots?"

She sighed, scratching her ear from annoyance of her nicknames. "I'm off duty, Nick, if you haven't noticed… Even If I wanted to arrest you, I couldn't… right now."

"Good, then what do you think? Do I pay my taxes?"

Her eyes rolled reflexively in irritation. " _Do I pay my taxes?_ " she repeated in a low-pitched mocking tone, mimicking him. " _Jeez_ , I don't know… would I ask you if I knew?" Her leg began thumping the air as she was getting more and more frustrated from Nick's antics.

"Oh, _hah_ …" -he chuckled- "do you always do that? Ok, I'll tell you. I… _don't._ " He reached out, grabbing a chopped log and threw it into the barrel, while Judy fumbled through her pockets.

But Nick wasn't out of the water yet, as she had found a flaw in his logic. "And you said you didn't like hurting those who don't deserve it right?" she asked with a smirk.

Nick, not seeing where she was heading, played along, " _Ri-iight_?" he made a paw gesture, emphasizing his rhetoric question.

"Then, by not paying your taxes, you're hurting mammals indirectly. They won't receive help from the government because of lack of funds, and YOU'RE a contributor to that," she finished, frowning and crossing her arms.

 _I gotchya Slick Nick._ But instead of what she thought he would do, he did exactly the opposite. He grinned. _Why is he grinning? Again?!_

Nick clasped his paws together and threw another log into the barrel. "Interesting. In theory you are 100% right. But there is a big flaw in your statement, Fluff. Let me tell you the truth as I've seen it over the years. It doesn't matter if I pay my taxes or not. Those mammals will be in the same position as before. The taxes are mostly used for strengthening the military, funding wars, building parks, and other _projects_. Tell me if that's not a waste of money. I don't want to do anything with parks and war, no thank you. And I am to pay for the longevity of our society? A society that doesn't even want me? Hah!"

He said it with such confidence that Judy just couldn't try and contradict him. She had never thought about it that way and knew that officially, it wasn't like that. But in front of her stood a fox with years of experience on the streets, he showed he knew the law, he showed knowledge about the city, he showed he had experience and was very intelligent. And about the prejudice, that was unconditionally true and because she had gone through that as well, speechlessness enveloped her and made her question herself very strictly.

"Carrots, don't overthink it. You still have a lot to learn but don't worry if you are questioning what is right and wrong. That means you are making progress," -he tilted his head and gently smiled- "the concept of morality is based on logic and reasoning… not on what you are told that is right or wrong. You've got to figure that yourself, and adapt with the circumstances. So simple!"

He had said it so enthusiastically with his burning jade eyes as if he was again back at the Jumbo-pop during that smart hustle. It chilled her body because even if it sounded sweet, she couldn't agree with it. "But… but that… that doesn't give you the right to break the law, Nick."

"I don't care about the law. It changes constantly to suit the needs of those in power. When the rulers change, laws do as well. "

"What? No! It affects everyone, the powerful are on the same page as those who aren't," was her exclamation as her skin underneath that soft fur started itching from the doubt of her own beliefs, beliefs that the confident fox was starting to wobble.

Nick was studying her and after some moments, he stood up and closed the distance between them, taking a knee in front of her and looking straight in her glistering eyes that reflected the peeking moon from around horizon. The move made Judy to feel pressure in her stomach as well as tingling around her nerve ends as he was almost touching her wiggling nose with his moisty-purple one. "Do you believe that, Judy?" He used her first name for the first time since ever, thus making the question sound incredibly serious, and she visibly understood that.

"Yes, everyone is equal in front of the law," she returned strongly with no hesitation, giving him the impression that she deeply believed that but the doubt had now infected her and was spreading like a wildfire.

He sighed, looked at his feet for a moment and then back at her again. "You're still very green. I know you strongly believe it but that isn't true. Those with power and money are superior in front of the law. That's an unmistakable fact," he asserted with an immense amount of tenacity and seriousness, his face not even for a second losing its aura of sincerity, while his unblinking eyes were unwavering, eyes that were following the doe's with incredible focus.

But even with the closeness and confidence, the doubt wasn't able to overpower her foundations. "Prove it," she returned unconvinced, getting Nick to think of a good example for her.

"What do you know about the gangs in Zootopia?"

"I know they exist, but I don't know too much as I'm new to the force and the city." The answer made Nick to smile slightly.

"Okay, so there are organized gangs in each district of Zootopia. Do you want details?"

"Of course!" she returned with passion as the opportunity to learn more was not something that was up to be missed but that same passion made her ignorant to the sun's dying breath.

Nick snorted and returned to his previous seat of comfort but he wasn't beginning, just looking at her smugly and the anxiety to know more was drowning her in hyperactivity to which her leg was reacting in a very adorable manner. "Ok, I'll start with Tundratown. The place isn't ruled by a gang but by a crime family. The head of it is a shrew named —"

Upon hearing that, Judy fell into giggling and that made him halt for the moment. She couldn't comprehend how somebody could even want to call themselves like that when they were just a small shrew. But sometimes looks could be deceiving and that realization got her to reduce her laughter to just light chuckles as she refocused her eyes onto Nick who was looking at her with a small smile yet there was this seriousness that had manifested around him like a rain cloud.

"Hey, it's fine to laugh, but never do it in front of him or you'll get iced… _ughm_ … I almost had the _pleasure_ not so long ago."

"Why? What did you do? Don't tell me you tried to steal from him. That would've been pretty dumb of you, not that I would be surprised," she returned smugly, making him frown notably.

"Of course I didn't steal from him. It's just that… _well_ … " -his fake smile was evident from the twitches on the corners of his lips-"I may have sold … a rug." The answer made Judy's ears to bend slightly and eyebrows to huddle together.

"A-a rug?" she repeated with an unbelievable look.

"A rug… from the butt of… a skunk…" At hearing that, Judy stared at him straight-faced for several moments, thinking that this was somehow a big joke but as he wasn't showing that it was, she felt this tickling around her vocal cords, which was accompanied by this pressure in her stomach.

The snorts weren't easy to contain and because she couldn't hold herself no more, she burst all that positive energy out in the form of jovial laughter, with paws clenching her stomach and it looked that she couldn't breathe very well but just as it seemed that she was to stop, the vigorous distraught got her to fall off the sturdy log and she continued on the dry soil that was riddled with tiny rocks, while Nick tried to defend his imbecility and failed, thus getting her to further fall into the spirit-calming hysteria even harder than she was in previously.

After a minute, her tittering died down and she managed to recollect herself. With random giggles, she managed to say through rapid breaths at last, "I… knew you… could do… silly things but… this, _aha_ … is just too bad even for you…"

He feigned that he was offended by her comment and looked away, and she didn't miss the opportunity to tease. " _O-h-h_ , did I hurt _the biggg baddd_ fox's _feewings_?"

He chuckled and turned to look at her. "I don't like this, Fluff. You're learning too fast. You may take over my hustling business with the speed you're learning at." Seeing that she was still trying to contain herself and was giggling quietly, he asked dryly, " _Ok!_ You want more or you're gonna keep laughing?"

That made her halt abruptly, and with erect ears she answered with a pleading but jolly voice, " _Oh,_ of course! Keep going, please!"

"Nah, I don't think you're interested anymore… _Meeh_ , your loss."

"What? No—" But before she would say anything else, understanding hit her of what he was doing and a very amused smirk took its roots onto her face. "So you can't prove it, I knew it," she mocked with crossed paws, knowing that the fox's ego wouldn't let him keep quiet and that he would continue.

"Are you really a bunny?" The question made Judy to huff loudly and Nick to snort. "Alright, alright. So I told you about Tundratown. Next one would be… Sahara Square. That there's one mean gang. They smuggle all kinds of crap into the district: from drugs to firearms and who knows what else. From what I've heard, they are extremely brutal. They never let rival gangs to rise in power and put them down with a lot of blood. The leader of this criminal organization is a giraffe called Longneck. "

"Seriously? Longneck? What's up with these criminals and their names…" she asked in genuine surprise.

"Beats me, tho I wouldn't ever ask them even if I had the chance... Where were we? Ah, Savanna Central! There are many gangs with leaders there most of which have been probably replaced by now. The one that controls them all is led by a black rhinoceros named Stinghorn" -Judy tried to object but was quickly talked over- "ah, _tck-tck,_ don't even ask… I don't know!"

Nick coughed in his paw while she bit her lip in anticipation. "As I was saying, this guy is massive. I've seen him once when I was conducting my legal business" -Judy tiffed and looked at him with an unbelieving expression- "okay… nearly-legal business. So, I'm selling some old laptops in a back alley. That was like what… before I left the city?"

"I don't know, Nick, am I supposed to?" she returned with a straight-face and small smile.

"Hmm, well I think it was before that, definitely before that. So… I'm in Savanna Central, selling my things and minding my own business when I see this _giant_ rhino walking down the street with… were they four or five? I think there were four bodyguards, can't remember what species they were but they were bulky mammals… Why did he even need them…"

"So they come over to my ordered stand and Stinghorn looks at me, scaring me out of my fur with just his glare. And he just stays there and stares! Like what the hell, who does that… And he just looks terrifying with that long shiny horn of his and massive body. So after a minute of staring, which felt like hours for me, he asked: _what's this?_ And I almost returned back then with: _who's asking_." That made her snort because she was right all along, humor was his getaway from everything, he had just proved it with his story.

"I had to bite my tongue so it wouldn't slip" -that got another snort out of Judy- "so, I answered and explained to him what I'm doing and he just stands there like a statue. I don't remember even hearing him breathing, could've been the adrenaline or he actually wasn't breathing. Who knows…"

"So we stay there in awkward silence, at least that's how I felt… then he extends his arm and opens his hoof, gesturing me to give him something which at the time, I didn't know was money. So I'm there, standing like an idiot and finally I asked: _what;_ to which he huffed loudly and answered: _pay up_. I didn't know for what was I supposed to give him money, but he looked ready to beat me up."

"And stupid young me had chosen to put the stand in a dead-end alley. So I ask him for what am I supposed to pay to which he answered: _so I don't break your bones and if you die, give you to my guards for a snack. Pay-UP._ Something like that… if I remember correctly."

"They were blocking my exit as well as the sun. I mean they were literally blocking the light and making the whole alley enveloped in shadows. So I decided to give them all I had, which was around 900$... I hope that they've had to use that money for health purposes… So I put the money in his hoof, and he starts counting while his bodyguards come behind the stand and start rummaging through my stuff… When he finished counting, he looked at me with hateful eyes and said: _next time we meet, foxy, if you don't have double of what you had today, I'll bash your skull against the pavement and impale you on my horn!_ "

The funny story seemed to turn not so humorous as she had expected it to be because that sounded like extortion and intimidation. "I remember that it wasn't his words that made me shiver but his foul breath. I mean what the hell, did he have a dead body inside of that mouth of his? _Yuck_ … I can still feel that intrusive odor… Then, they all walked away and I immediately began collecting my things. I just wanted to get as far as possible from the area. I thought that they'd come back and kill me just for fun… I mean, I've dealt with bullies before but this one, he was just on another level. _Nu-uh._ "

Throughout the whole story, Judy was listening with an enormous amount of concentration and interest. She didn't like the ending tho and vocally expressed her disapproval instantly, "Why didn't you call the police, _Nick_!"

He looked at her with lowered eyebrows, aggravated by her naiveness and exhaled sharply. " _Tft_ … You can't just call the cops on these guys… you just can't," he declared seriously, without any of his smug-self present.

"Why not?" she asked unconfidently as she didn't understand why he thought like that, even if a distant memory was nit-picking at her thinking process, a repressed memory that managed to quickly disappear in the depths of her mind.

"Because If I don't want to end up in a ditch, that is exactly what I must never ever do. If they find out that I've tried to snitch on them. They'll place a hit on me or do it themselves."

"B-b-but…" she tried to counter with something, she wanted to prove her point that the police would've protected him but she chose to remain silent. She knew that in front of her stood a mammal that had way more experience than her on the streets. That made her slightly downcast as she understood that all that she had learned till now was just scratching the surface of the real thing, the visible small tip of the iceberg but not the rest of the giant mass underneath.

"Ok, so we got to the last one, the Rainforest district." Judy's ears immediately perked up in anticipation of his next words and her face returned its curious and energetic look.

"Yea, sorry but I don't know much for the gangs there… never really liked that place, so I rarely went there. It's raining all the time and the moisture just gets in your fur and… _blah_." That brought her mood down considerably because even if he sounded sincere, she just knew that he wouldn't disclose information that would get him in trouble as it would bite him back in the tail. What was worse was the dawning understanding of how things were because if Nick knew so much, than those in power weren't blind as well… The idea gave her chilling shivers around her spine.

"But… If you and the mammals living on the streets know. If this is common knowledge. Why aren't these criminals taken to justice?" she asked, sounding extremely flustered while her paws were huddled close to her chest.

" _Ahem_ ," was Nick's only response, and he looked at her with a tilted head to the side and a small sad smile.

"B-b-but… no… it… that! It's… That c-can't b-be t-t-true!" she almost yelled in denial as she felt her current mentality starting to wobble and rearrange itself. "Why… why is this world so unfair and unjust," she mumbled to herself rather than anyone else with a quivering voice.

"Because it is as it is. It's always been like that," he tried to reassure her but her eyes were depleted of that fire, and she just stared into the rocky shore. She couldn't believe herself that she was succumbing to negativity even if what was understood was very heartwrenching.

"I'll do my best!" she just said out of nowhere which made Nick's brows go up in confusion because that was extremely unexpected even for both of them.

" _Huh?_ "

"I don't care if the world is filled with hate. I'll give my best and fight for justice, whatever the cost for me may be!" she voiced confidently and seriously, making Nick's mouth to hang open with silence falling over the two mammals as none dared to continue.

She wasn't going to quit, the sacrifices had been made and the path ahead didn't seem bright at all, yet she had made a promise which she wasn't content on breaking.

That wasn't going to happen.

It was sundown and the temperature was dropping rapidly. Because it was just spring, the nights were still not warm enough. Nick got up; pulled a glass bottle filled with something transparent; grabbed matches from his bag; and went to the barrel, pouring the bottle's contents into it shortly after.

"What are you doing?"

He flicked a match against the matchbox and glanced at the grey doe with a smirk. "Our ancestors called it fire. I think you may have heard about it." Judy scowled at his comment to which he stick out his tongue. Then he threw the burning match into the barrel, and it simply exploded in flames that danced and blazed into the sky and around.

That made Judy to flinch and quickly to express her concerns, "Nick! Wait, you can't do that. It's against the law to burn trash!"

With his back still turned towards her, he wiggled his tail in a mocking manner. "Oh, I thought it was Carrots present, not Officer Fluff. And I don't think anyone would mind if we get comfy on this cold night."

"But, I—" she tried to add to her case but he stopped her.

"No buts, just enjoy yourself. Stop thinking about this preposterous law and live your life!" he berated and looked at her in a disapproving manner, scowling.

"I can't just… As an officer of the law I can't just break it when I see fit. I've got an oath to keep and I don't see it as right…"

"You're making this hard on me. So this is what I'm going to do. I'll ask you a question and if your answer contradicts your previous statement then I want you to promise me that you'll think about it very thoroughly. Ok?" She looked at him disapprovingly for a few moments but then she finally submitted with a nod just because of curiosity.

"So, hypothetically, tomorrow you hear on the news that there has been a new law implemented. All predators are now enemy of the government and are to be imprisoned. Those of them who don't comply are to be taken by force or killed. Now, you see, you are tasked of taking me in for instance, and I don't want to come with you. I've done nothing wrong mind you, and you know it. What will you do? Will you follow the law blindly, beat me to detain me, will you kill me, will you help me out, will you let me go? What will you do?"

What he had said managed to shock her to the core. It was extreme and would likely never happen but if it did, what would she do? She knew that she wouldn't be able to arrest him if the claim was that he was a predator but if she didn't, she would be breaking the law. Beating or killing him was out of the question. She pondered on the topic and managed to remember Nick saying that the right thing is what is most logical and reasonable. So what she would do is help him in any way she can, even if she was breaking the law.

"I'd help you," she answered, looking ashamed as she knew that the contradiction had just transpired, which managed to fill her with shame.

"And why would you, if I may ask?"

"Because… it would be the right thing to do," she whispered, still avoiding to look at him.

"Hey, look at me, please." She did as he asked, slowly. "Don't be embarrassed about it. You understood what I was trying to tell you. Even if the law says it right or not, it doesn't mean it is or it isn't. You just have to think for yourself and get to the conclusion. I won't overload you with any more information, so I'll let you think about it on your own." She only nodded in response and he returned to his spot again and slumped into the chair, savoring the breeze against his exposed creamy chest fur.

It was getting very dark, with the surroundings now being barely visible for a mammal that wasn't nocturnal. Judy was so grabbed in the discussion that she didn't even notice it till now. The realization made her panicked, her heart doubling its rate in a matter of seconds. "Nick, it's… it's NIGHT!" She ran up the small slope like a cheetah, going on top and jumping on one of the stone bridge's railings. She couldn't see anything, only the fire in and around the barrel and parts of Nick's body. Knowing she just couldn't venture into the darkness as she would get lost, she ran back to Nick who currently looked almost asleep.

"Nick… Nick… NICK," she yelled the last one, visibly startling him but she was too panicked to care.

" _Argh_ … what is it?" he mumbled, groaning in annoyance and grabbing his head.

"It's too dark… I can't see. So I can't get back to the bus stop."

He looked at her and scoffed. "Then stay here, I don't see the problem," he returned, yawning afterwards.

"Could you walk me. You can see in the dark!" she begged with hope to which the vulpine snorted.

"Not a chance, Carrots. My legs aren't listening to me anymore."

The answer made her flustered, as she didn't know what else to do or say, seeing that Nick was being stubborn and tired as well. "Where am I supposed to sleep? On the ground?" she complained with a dissatisfactory voice and stance but it wasn't working as intended.

"Pretty much, yea. Told you, I can't offer much hospitality."

She stewed her anger and sat back on the log, as she saw no other options and muttered, "Dumb fox."

Silence befell them. The stars were now visible and filled the seemingly endless black night sky. The crickets were already chirping, creating a calming and intoxicating atmosphere. For Judy it felt like home. She remembered when she would go out to her favourite spot, which was a hill with a very lonely and big pear tree, and just watch the night go by. It was beautiful, she would just close her eyes and start dreaming of how she would become a cop, help others in need and most importantly of all: make the world a better place.

But as she had achieved that big goal of becoming a cop, the small exchange with the reynard had filled her with doubt if what she had chosen was actually the right choice because it really didn't feel as such. Yet, she never quit on her dream and wasn't going to now, and what pulled her back to reality was the sleepy voice of the red vulpine close to her.

"Hey, is your home town the same as this place?"

" _Hmm?_ Oh, yea just not so isolated. But at night it's the same… I guess."

"Why would you ever leave it? I wouldn't if I were you," he asked, genuinely sounding curious.

"I didn't want to be a carrot farmer. My dream was to be a cop since I was very little… Just couldn't satisfy myself with a simple life I guess."

" _Huh,_ being a carrot farmer doesn't sound bad to me, quite the opposite actually."

She interpreted his sentence as one of mockery and defended herself. "No, it's not good, it's boring, uneventful and ridiculous!"

"I wasn't talking about you. If I had the opportunity to choose like you had, I would've chosen carrot farmer."

"But it's too simple. You don't know how boring it is in reality. If you knew you wouldn't be thinking of choosing to be one!"

"Give me your answer after 1 year. It will be very different then, I promise you," he concluded with a smile, which managed to confuse Judy, so she remained silent and just relaxed under the eye-closing atmosphere that was drowning her in dizziness and she didn't know how much time had passed when she heard Nick talk again.

"Hey, Carrots, so how was your first day on the job?" The question managed to bring her mood down, so she got one of her now-drooped ears in front of her face and started caressing it. Nick understood her non-verbal answer, as he saw her gloomy expression. "That bad?"

She didn't want to talk about it but saw that he wouldn't stop asking if she didn't answer him. And how did he figure it out? "Yes, it was awful. And… how did you know it was my first day?" she pried and looked at him with curious puzzlement.

"You just told me," he returned with a shit-eating grin.

"I didn't te—" -seeing that realization had hit her, Nick sent her a wink, making her huff loudly in response- " _sly_ fox… As to my day, I got this very _important_ meter maid job. Figured out that my boss is a bigot. Received countless mean comments from civilians. Got _hustled_ , thanks to you."

At hearing that, Nick gave her a sad smile and expressed his apologies, "For which I'm humbly sorry, my dear, Carrots."

" _Sure you are_ … Then some jerk parked his patrol car over me. I found out that even the friendliest mammal in the department has his doubts about me. I encountered a psycho weasel and his strange partner. Then—"

Nick became wide-eyed at hearing her mention a _psycho weasel_ and motioned with his paw to make her stop talking. "Don't tell me you met Weaselton and his partner?"

His knowledge of the duo surprised her, and she immediately needed to know more. "Do you know them?"

"Of course I do, everyone from the crime world knows those two. A week ago they managed to kill some mammal while they were detaining him in his home. I say that he was a loose end so they just cut it. They're pretty famous on the streets, I'll tell you that."

She became wide-eyed and yelled in a bewildered tone, "WHAT" -she pointed towards him with a slightly quivering paw- "they killed somebody and got away with it? If you know, why didn't you do something—"

Nick quickly talked over her and she just listened with crestfallen ears and a face drained of blood, "No evidence. They set it up, said the mammal attacked them in a way that it's impossible to blame them for their actions. They've been doing this for a very long time. It's nothing new under the sun. Just… just don't get involved with them, I mean it. They can get you in a lot of trouble or even get you killed… just don't." He looked afraid, but that didn't manage to scare her as Nick had probably intended, it only sparked the fire in her even further.

"They already threatened to kill me, and I won't just let it go. I don't care who they are. They aren't getting away with it!"

"Okay, but don't do or say anything dumb, okay? If they know you're after them, they won't take any chances and will do something against you. If you want to incriminate them, you need to take your time and collect evidence, _'kay_? "

Judy accepted his advice without much quarrel and figured she could ask for his help. " _Ehmm_ … Could you help me?" Her tail wiggled from excitement in anticipation of his answer and she began picturing as well as dreaming of him becoming some sort of an unofficial partner to her but when his eyebrows huddled together, her fantasy died instantly.

" _Whoaw!_ If I get on their radar I'm dead or worse, I'll end up in jail. They don't care about evidence because they just create it from thin air. But I really can't tell you anything because I actually don't know. I don't and haven't meddled in such affairs for a very long time. As I said I'm a small fish, and I am going to remain as such."

Her last chance of getting some information on the criminal duo was lost. She could see Nick's bug-eyed look and knew he wouldn't tell her anything on this matter. That got her down and she remained silent, looking anywhere but at him. The crackling fire that spread warmth to the side of her body was comforting as well as the colorful flames that sent embers into the night sky which was as clear as a priceless diamond with white stars having swarmed it fully. The slowly flowing water nearby was entrancing with the soothing wind that touched her fur and moved it at its will.

Her eyes had almost closed as she was losing herself when Nick spoke out of the blue, "I haven't asked you this, why did you become a cop?"

That woke her up a bit, and she went on to give her automated response that was usually shoved due to her annoyance of receiving criticism that was greatly unwelcomed most of the times. "I became a cop because I wanted to make the world a better place an—" she couldn't continue as Nick talked over her.

"No _mumbo-jumbo_ , Carrots. I see you're trying to give me a plain answer." He saw through her act, thus making hear groan.

"It's just… I knew there were mammals that needed help. And being a cop I saw an opportunity to do good for a living by helping those who could not help themselves." That was partially the truth but her main reason was obscured very deeply within her mind, a reason she didn't want to share nor even think about because it wasn't pleasant even one bit.

"That's very noble of you but I must say that I see a _miiinor_ issue. You could've done that even without becoming a cop. Oh and being a cop is half the time being buried in paperwork. And when you get to do your job, you're restricted by regulations and the law… I always say you that you can't chase after those who break the law, with the law. You have to be on their level. The criminal will always search for loopholes and even if you know they are guilty, you can't touch them because of insufficient evidence. Pretty moronic if you ask me. But hey, you don't see me complaining," he finished with a snicker, pointing at himself as to solidify his point.

"So what would you have me do then, Mr. _Iknoweverything,_ " was her question that had been delivered by a scowl and intertwined paws.

"I'm not telling you to do anything. Just continue on your course. But know that if you start losing it, you can always find another one similar to it."

His answer made her snort. "You're speaking in riddles, stop acting like a smart-ass."

He smiled and took the blanket from behind him, snuggling into it. It was getting colder and the fire was dying. "Ok, it was fun while it lasted. Now, I'm going to sleep because tomorrow, there are hustles to be made." She sighed loudly, not liking the idea that he would continue to tread the thin line of what was allowed.

She removed her kevlar vest; utility belt; feet and wrist pads; and put them near her, after which she tried to get comfortable on the old rotting log. After a minute of silence, Judy decided to say something to Nick because she had thought a lot about him, her and her duties that were nagging at her for allowing herself to get slightly attached to him in a way, as she knew how he felt about all, having had experienced the prejudice and misery of the world herself as well.

"Hey, Nick, you asleep?"

There was some squirming as well as groaning with slaps of wet lips but no answer was coming around to which she turned around so she could see him, which was very hard because the fire was now restricted inside the barrel with its light escaping into the sky and not around the place as it had before. She was to ask again if not for his sluggish _humm_ after which he retorted, "No thanks to you…"

Him and his smart mouth… Nevertheless, she began after a moment, "I just wanted to tell you that I can try and forget today's events if you stop hustling… I won't go after you, but if you keep going, I won't have a choice… I know you're… well, not a bad mammal, yet it's my duty… it's my duty and I just can't turn a blind eye… I can't… and I understand your way of thinking… but I have to do my job…"

She had to address the gnawing issue as well, the need to do so was exhaustingly vexing. "The example you gave me was pretty extreme… and I hope I'll never have to see it happen," she finished and repositioned herself, while Nick smiled in response to her honesty that she was always keen of not keeping to just herself, a trait that sometimes wasn't very positive. But she was who she was.

"Don't worry, I won't hold it against you. I hope that you'll truly understand sooner than later… Now… time to sleep."

Sometime throughout the night as the fire died down and stopped emitting warmth, Judy felt the piercing cold, which came with the wind, to invade through her clothes and fur as it tried to get in her as to steal her warmth which got her to shiver and stir from her half-awake state. Her police blues weren't keeping her heat well enough, and she didn't know if sleep would be achieved this night. That made her to groan, and she shifted again which managed to attract the attention of a mischievous red fox who probably wasn't accustomed to having someone near him when sleeping.

A yawn was heard with a light snicker that was followed by words, "Oh, somebody is cold I hear. Well, I can offer you to share my chair, but I remember you weren't interested in sleeping with me earlier today." He winked at her, which she didn't detect as it was dark, while laughing and closed his eyes as to try and doze off, for who knows which time.

Judy was tempted at the offer, knowing full well that it would be in her best interest. But just the thought of sleeping near a fox, a male as well, made her nervous and embarrassed rather fast. _Stupid sly fox, trying to tease me all the time. If only I could get him to…_ Then, Judy remembered the bus stop. When she sat next to him, his reaction was a very awkward one. Instead of being smug, he tried to back off, a few times even. No, she wasn't imagining it, he actually was nervous from her move, but she didn't saw it back then.

 _If he can do that to me, why not return him the favour?_

 _But he is a male, Judy, you can't just… well, sleep with him… Not in that meaning of course!_ Just the thought alone made her blush madly, making her squirm in her _comfortable_ position.

 _It's not like… I like him? I'm only going to be using him for a heated pillow… nothing else… oh, and to make him agitated a bit._ The image of an agitated Nick made her giggle lightly and that accomplished some stress-release which lowered the pace of her heart a bit.

 _If I don't, I'm going to be grumpy tomorrow… and I don't know if I can take my colleagues attitudes in such a state. Argh… why am I arguing with myself, just do it already, Judith._

While Nick was dozing off, Judy was working up the courage to make her move. She kept giving herself good arguments why she should do it and why she shouldn't. She was bothered by the idea what it would look like, but who would see to care? In the end she decided it would be for the best, the consequences be damned, she was going to have a good night's sleep after such a day.

She managed to get up with slightly wobbly legs, and slowly got in front of the red vulpine, because of the darkness, who was audibly snoring. "Nick…" she almost whispered, but got no reaction from him. "Nick," she uttered louder, yet nothing happened again. "NICK!" she yelled, stirring the poor tod for who knows what time today.

She couldn't see him very well but the moon was helping a bit to outline his body that was half being obscured by the warm-looking blanket. He grumbled in agitation and rubbed the middle of his muzzle as an act of showing his annoyed state. " _Aaargh_ … do you just enjoy stressing me out, Carrots, or it's just a bunny thing?" he teased in dissatisfaction, sounding like he was in pain even if he was just overplaying it.

"As a matter of fact I do, but… I didn't wake you up for… _that,_ " she uttered the last part without much confidence and began looking around as to focus her attention elsewhere. But even when she sought for a distraction, one just couldn't be found in the blinding darkness that was all around, and because he wasn't responding, she tried to explain to him what she actually wanted. "Could you… _eehm_ … like make some space?" Her nose began twitching madly and Nick smirked insanely.

" _Tck,tck_ … am I hearing correctly? Is this _cu-_ adorable, innocent, and little bunny asking this good-looking fox what I think she's asking?" His smugness was radiating from him like a nuclear reactor, but instead of receiving his expected reaction from her, she did the exact opposite because her ears had detected his mess-up as to him calling her cute, and nervousness was replaced with anger and determination, the warming blood chasing the toxins of bashfulness away and locking them for the time being.

"Yes, yes I am," was her very bold and fearless answer which made the vulpine extremely alarmed.

He somehow managed to mask his bewilderment, even if it wasn't needed as Judy couldn't see well, and pressed on, "Are you sure, what if I try to eat you in the middle of the night? You wouldn't want that," to which he only got a _humpf_ from her and she thought that it was now or never but when the blanket moved and opened, she squinted her eyes and saw that there was no space for her to which her ears fell and her belly got this… flutter? "As you can see, there isn't any space on this small chair. The only option left is… well… I don't need to tell you, do I?"

She was now having second thoughts on the matter, most of them consisting of: _is it worth it?_ By the looks of it, the only way she was getting in there was if she was to lean into him, which was making her imagine things that were leading to a place of inappropriateness and in return her heart was becoming a bit too jumpy. He was clothed but then again, he was a male, which was conjuring those thoughts of hers. But just as she was about to abandon ship by just walking away and returning to her cold _chambers_ , Nick made a mistake.

"There's no shame in calling it quits, Carrots," he mocked playfully and crossed the line.

That snapped her out of her doubts and fears, filling her with unyielding determination to show him otherwise. All of her worries just died there because of his attitude towards her, attitude that managed to get her to think about his manners and not the fact of what she was to do.

"Yes, there is," she retorted firmly with an annoyed expression and clenched fists. Before the vulpine had any time to react, she lunged herself at him, colliding with his stomach, and making him grunt from the impact and surprise. She then sat on his leg, straddling it, with her back to him, and leaned against his body as to get comfortable, touching his silky Hawaiian shirt that kept that soft and warm fur underneath.

Nick was so shocked by her actions that he didn't even react, still visibly processing what had happened. "If you do something funny, I'll make sure you aren't able to walk in a straight line for a couple of days."

She could sense his uncomfortableness because his breath wasn't rhythmic, his warmth had increased and his body readjusted itself several times. That was her que to try and reduce the tension. " _Awww,_ is the big bad fox scared of dis _wittle_ bunny?" She was acting smug from the outside, but inside, her inner turmoil was racing like a car with an insane driver because of the closeness and newly created sensations like the warmth against her back and around her thighs. It was so welcoming and likeable to her. He was actually cushy as well because even if he looked slim, which she had interpreted as a bony physique, there was muscle underneath there and it made for a satisfying pillow.

The musk, that was now present in the air, didn't seem to get her to react like on the bus stop, and strangely, it began dulling her senses with the whispering instincts inside of her head being pushed further out. In a way, they were being muffled and it felt great to be free from them, even if it wasn't complete as it wasn't possible to ever get rid of them, she at least could learn to live with those effects of the past.

" _Ahmmm_ … Fluff… _wow_ … as I said, you seem to be full of surprises… _yea_ …" He managed to get himself under control, putting on his hustler façade without any leaks anymore. "Oh, I am indeed scared of _dis wittle_ bunny. You aren't going to murder me in my sleep… _are you_?" He then ruffled Judy's fur on top of her head which earned him a light shove in the ribs.

"Depends on how you behave," she returned grumpily. "Now, shush and close the blanket, it's freezing."

"Yea, your tail is like a pawpsicle… but not in between yo—" He snapped his mouth shut with a wet slap and she tried to figure out what he was to just say but that snap had made her ears to spring to attention and to slap his muzzle to which she turned around to apologize but saw his strained expression which was exposing some of his teeth to her lilac eyes. She instantly swooshed around as there was this sensation below her underbelly that generated more heat than necessary and her to grind herself backwards because the position was slightly getting uncomfortable.

She noticed her change of scent quickly and hoped that he wouldn't understand from where that was coming from or what it even meant. The mortification was on her cheeks and if it were day, she would've been like a ripe tomato right for the taking. Such feelings weren't sitting right with her because this what she feared of happening because he wasn't repulsing her by all means, exactly the opposite, well, aside from his snarky attitude of course. " _Ehmm_ … I guess it's time to sleep… night, Fluff," his light voice got her out from the place of uncertainty and she tried to respond normally.

" _Yea, totally_ … night, Nick." Judy snuggled the blanket closer to her and tried to go asleep, while trying not to squeeze her thighs because of the present itchiness in between but her tail wiggled involuntarily against Nick's belly at that moment, tickling him in a very gentle way and she was sure that this wasn't a smooth ride for the red fox either but neither said anything and the ambient silence prevailed.

The moon was now up, lighting up the night sky and was chasing away some of the darkness that had befallen the land. It's reflection upon the water made it glister and shine, making it look like liquid silver. The wind passed through the thick grass, thus creating a calming and soothing noise that would tickle the insides of your ears in a warming way. And in the middle of that were two mammals, one prey and the other predator who were at last quietly and peacefully snoring together.

* * *

In the middle of the night, time unknown, Nick was abruptly awoken from his sleep. He didn't find the cause right away, as he was very disoriented. But then, he felt it again. Something or rather someone was pulling his tail. He looked under the blanket and saw no one other than Judy. He remembered that she had dozed off on him, but that wasn't what caught his attention. It was the sight of her snuggling his tail.

 _Are you kidding me now? And is she… is she purring?_ The sight caused a tingling sensation in his nether regions which he immediately tried to suppress. _WHAT? No, no, no, no… Think about something disgusting… about… about… the back of Finnick's van… yes… that's it…_

As he was battling with himself, Judy swayed, falling between his legs while still holding his bushy tail. But that wasn't better for Nick as she was now even touching his state of agitated-arousal. _You aren't making this easier for me rabbit… I… I shouldn't even be having such feelings towards her, what's wrong with me…_ He felt himself blushing which got him to growl in his throat from frustration and to close his eyes as he tried to fall asleep. _Just forget this ever happened so there won't be any need to do any explaining. Yea, that's it._

Unbeknownst to Nick was that as Judy fell, that awoke her. She could feel his sensuality on her back as well as smell it, as the scent was very heavy and different than his usual one, it was very enriched and thought-provoking. She could feel the heat in her loins increasing, changing her scent too but it was trapped under the blanket and it wasn't as drastic, thus Nick didn't notice. She knew that something had to be done but decided against it, playing it asleep and not wanting to talk about this awkward situation that they had gotten themselves in.

 _And am I holding his tail?_ _Why am I holding it so close to me… What in the name of carrots is going on today…_

The day had been filled with surprises and they just kept on coming. But not all of them were bad and even if she tried to tell herself that this one was, something deeply in her mind was contradicting her weakly but surely.

Something that she couldn't put words into just yet.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

\- Another revisit. Both my thumbs are throbbing in pain. I lost a segment of chapter 23 because who the fuck knows. Yea, I should be working on it and not revisiting old chapters. But they need to be damn fixed because I'm adding a new integration to my style. You know, these first chapters have always been lower quality than those after 9-10. Damn… Duct tape should do it, _hehe_.

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	3. Punishment

**Chapter Three**

 **Punishment**

It was a new day which meant a new beginning, a fresh start. But that wasn't really the case, as it was just and only a new day. The sun's first rays were poking from behind the horizon, chasing away the cold and uncomfortable darkness that was looming over the land till now. Slowly but surely, the surroundings started becoming more visible and clear, the moisture now starting to glister from the beams of warmth. But a certain place where the sun still hadn't reached directly was where two furry mammals were still loudly sleeping together.

The vulpine had his tongue hanging out of his mouth, head tilted to the side and his fur was still slightly damp from the night's condensation. Between his thighs, underneath the blanket was the doe, surprisingly still snuggling his now disheveled tail from when she had fallen in between.

It was so peaceful and quiet, the only disturbances being: the slowly flowing water, the light breeze against soothing grass and the distant rustling of leafs. Nevertheless, peace couldn't be kept forever, as the grey doe's internal alarm woke her up. She slowly opened her eyes, trying to get light in them, so she could see her surroundings. But nothing was happening, only the plain color of darkness could be seen. She was still very sleepy and wasn't yet aware of her current situation, her memories still not wanting to kick in. There was that aura of safety, that feeling of softness, warmth and that air of calmness.

She started moving, trying to find a way out and as she was searching for one, she registered that she was holding something, something fluffy and… warm? She drew the unknown object close to her face and it tickled her nose, getting it to wiggle in response. Then, the scent that she had been inhaling with every breath managed to get her brain to register its familiarity and her memories started flooding back into her little head.

She stopped moving right away, as remembrance where she was and what she was holding in particular paralyzed her. Embarrassment hit her like a train, making her blush madly and pushing her to breathe rapidly, which wasn't helping as the smell of musk was intoxicating her even more, making her light-headed. She slowly let go of Nick's tail and put it aside, after which she changed to her original position from before she had fallen as it was a _taaad_ less compromising.

 _Okay, Judy, don't worry… it wasn't you who did all this. I mean it was… but… but YOU weren't in control! Yes, that's it. I didn't know… and it was just a misunderstanding… that's it!_ She managed to calm down her raging emotions, while thinking of a way to explain the night's activities to Nick and herself.

 _There is nothing to explain! Nothing happened…_

 _Yea keep lying to yourself you dirty rabbit, he poked you and you did nothing. You li—_

 _SHUT UP! Why am I even arguing with myself… Nothing happened, there is nothing to think or talk about!_ She managed to extinguish her inner-turmoil and relaxed. Then, she got out of the blanket slowly, ears first and then her head and stopped as to savor the moment. It was still slightly dark as the sun still hadn't reached the lake's bank yet. She could hear and feel Nick's slow breathing behind her, as his every exhale brushed the fur on top of her head, tickling her, which made her turn around and look at him. What she saw managed to get her wide-eyed from surprise. Nick's guard was down completely, he had a small smile on his face and seemed to be absolutely in bliss.

 _He does look good when he is genuinely smiling… You didn't just say that! What's going on with me... ARGH…_ She battled with her thoughts, managing to lock them up again and figuring that it was time to wake up the red snoring fox. "Nick…" she whispered which didn't get even a slight reaction. "Nick," This time she voiced with a normal tone and tugged his shoulder lightly but nothing happened again.

 _Why do I have to do this three times… every time…_ "NICK!"

The yelling of his name startled the poor tod, and probably doubled his heart rate, definitely had that happened as her paw that was on his chest for support was sensing its increasing rhythm, while he groaned with curled lips which made her own pumper to do as his. He was still half asleep and couldn't see very well, but he managed to register that someone was standing on him. That was when Judy began talking, "You're like a rock. Weren't foxes supposed to b—"

Waving a paw in front of the obviously for him unknown mammal as to make them leave him alone, he slurred, "Listen, Fin… "His yawn stretched wide and long, exposing his sharp fangs to her eyes which widened but she forced her instincts down instantly. "I don't know why you're are so close to _mee_... _mmmmhh_ … I know I'll break your heart, but… _mgrhh_ … I don't swing that way, BRO. So leave me _alooone_ " -he pushed weakly against her face but surrendered when she didn't budge with a grunt- "come back later you… _alco_ … _holic_ … _f_ … _o_ …."

And she lost him as he fell to the other side of the chair, almost toppling her with him. Slightly shocked from the events, she huffed darkly and bitterly, "You insufferable, _FOX!_ " His tail was instantly grabbed and pulled, thus making him yelp in panic and unexpected pain with paws that moved in front his chest with his claws extending in readiness, while his eyes shot open but then squinted because it wasn't dark no more. She could notice his frustration but he didn't even look down and that was irritating, so she _ehemed_ in testiness and finally grabbed his attention.

His eyebrows were huddled together but then, bafflement, he began chuckling and that got her shoulders to sag. But now that she was the one in the dark, not knowing why he was having such a reaction, she uttered the only thing that could come up her mind, "What?"

Nick calmed himself down and looked at her with resignation but still keeping his smile. " _Geeez,_ I don't know, Fluff. Maybe it's my tail you can't seem to control yourself when around."

She kept looking at him, baffled but then felt a tickling sensation in her two paws which made her to look down. She was again holding onto his auburn-tipped tail because she had forgotten to let it go after pulling off her stunt, not exactly knowing why. Feeling embarrassed and with no other explanation, she tried to play it off, " _Haha_ , yea, right… I just wanted to… you _know_ … wake you up... Yes, that's it!" But she failed miserably, making the red fox smirk in satisfaction at her adorable attempt.

"What about last night then? Were you just trying to wake me up again," he chuckled and his words made her go rigid swiftly, remembering what had happened last night on their misadventures.

 _Was he awake when… when you know… If only I just ask him…_

 _Are you crazy?_

 _I am talking to myself so yes, yes I am._ " _Maybe_ …" She only managed to mumble shyly but as she was digging her own hole, she saw Nick drumming his fingers on his lap. Seeing his non-verbal slip up, she chose to pressure the smug vulpine, putting her embarrassment behind her goal of shattering his endless ego.

"Maybe? You were holding onto it for your dear life, one would think that you—" not letting him finish, she interjected.

"What else did I try to do last night, Nick?"

That managed to get him slack-jawed for a few moments and that gave her all she needed. As he regained his composure and put on his trademark smirk, he clicked his tongue several times. "What do you think you tried to do, Fluff?"

"Gee, I don't know, would I be asking if I knew?" she tried dodging the question.

"That could be an option," he answered, trying to seem as if he wasn't buying her act.

"It could," but she didn't give in.

"Have you done something that _you_ know and I don't then?" he tried to corner her.

"Who knows. What do you think that could be?" she used his own tactics against him, not giving him a chance to press on.

After she said it, he looked at her straight-faced but then a slow grin became self-aware around his muzzle.

In front of him Judy was acting exactly the same, trying not to laugh as well. _He knows…_ And grinned madly just like him.

They stared at each other, grinning like two psychopaths for several moments, neither of them moving nor blinking. And just like that, they started laughing in unison.

It was pure and untampered laughter which was pulling out the air from her lungs and getting her mind dizzy, yet she could hear Nick's deep cackling that served as a continuation of the infectious chipperness that had transpired from both of their embarrassments that they had let take their course. She couldn't understand why they were even laughing about it as it wasn't anything humorous, yet here they were, in a puddle of insanity and inconsistency.

After a minute of guffawing, it tuned down to giggling. "Oh, _hah_ … you're are too smart for a bunny… Are you even a _bunny?_ " he joked and snickered at the awkward situation they had put themselves into.

"You're not bad yourself... And who knows, maybe I'm not," she answered lively and just like that, he swiftly began rummaging through the bags near the chair and she could now see his slowly wagging tail. It got her to lose the attitude as the bashfulness initiated its return, while seeing his toned rump didn't help even one bit.

Thus she turned around and sat on the corner of the chair because Nick had made some free space. As she sat, she just stared at nothing in particular for the time being, while she drained her head of thoughts until it became a barren desert, when suddenly, all her bottled emotions broke out, making her blush and even feel small amounts of sweat, which rarely happened on mammals as they usually panted to remove excess heat, because the bashfulness had won at last.

Her paws began rubbing into one another and her toes were wanting to feel the ground due to the clogging energy all around her body. The tension was being raised by her fluttering heart and she bit her lip in awkwardness from her thoughts of what she had done as well as with who, even if in reality nothing had happened.

Her ears detected something like static and it wasn't long until this comfortable and thought-provoking warmth closed in on her shoulder, and when the contact was felt by the soft pads of Nick's paw, she jumped as if she were buzzed by extreme voltage and landed on the ground on both her feet near the reddish barrel but didn't turn to look at him.

"Is something wrong, Fluff?" he asked with slight concern, while she fought off her raging emotions, masking them, and after a moment, turned around and noticed momentarily a compact radio between his legs as well as his baffled expression above that same box of electronics.

"Of course!" she divulged a bit too fast, not giving the answer she wanted to. "I mean… of course not! I just… got to go… _yea_ …" She pulled her phone out of her pocket, trying to power it on but it seemed dead. She feigned that she was seeing the time on her not-so-alive phone and went for the simplest excuse possible in the books of excuses. "Because I'm going to be late for… _work!_ That's it!"

Managing to say the words as fast as she could, she rushed to the log that was near the foldable chair, where her vest, utility belt, and wrist-pads were. She put everything on her as fast as she could, and then ran towards the top of the slope without waiting for Nick's response. As she got to the mossy stone bridge, she waved at Nick and yelled energetically, "Thanks, Nick, it was fun. See you around sometime!" and sped off towards the bus stop with a hysterically racing heart and anxiety derived from the failure of her composure and realization of its effects.

* * *

In the middle of nowhere, on a lonely and desolate bus stop, there was a grey doe. She was pacing left and right, looking extremely impatient. She didn't know the exact time as her phone was dead; her uniform was crumpled and the fur on her head was matted. Not knowing when the bus was going to arrive made her paws even itchier. If she were to be late for work on her second day, she would never hear the end of it and probably wouldn't be taken seriously ever again.

 _Why did I have to follow him up here. I could've just went home and everything would've been alright. But noooo. Me and my curiosity._ The small hills around her, which were dotted with wild flowers as well as uninviting weeds, and down the road after where a forest was whispering with its giant leaves and casting a shadow upon the unmaintained and war-losing road as its sides were being devoured by the hungry and dry dirt. She was sure that this must've been the bus stop because the spot lacked vegetation, as if it was stepped onto regularly, which must've been Nick and no one else… the place was after all quite solitary.

Yet, it didn't feel unpleasant in any way, it felt like home and that was gnawing hard upon her mind even when she was more interested in Zootopia's vibrant colors. The sights were incredible in the giant metropolis but the nights were absurdly noisy which was something of a problem as her ears were too sensitive, they just caught too much during a period when they shouldn't and she just couldn't still get used to it.

Her eyes fixated upon a flower and she shuffled closer to it as to recognize exactly what it was. It was a chamomile and a hell lot of it as it had conquered a hefty patch to itself around the beginning of the green hill. She put one flower head between her fingers and twisted it gently as to see it from the sides. Yea, it definitely was that same herb she remembered having been tasked of harvesting and then preparing it as tea for consumption or for baths during her life in Bunnyburrow. It managed to help with headaches, stomach pain, gallbladder issues and so on.

Her time on the farm wasn't a waste after all, she didn't believe it was because she had used it as best she could've and hadn't clowned around. In the end, it paid off with her perfect score at the academy but it seemed that such an accomplishment wasn't enough, there was so much more to grasp and comprehend, Nick had been a prime example as she thought that she'd be able to easily read him but had failed miserably as she had humiliated herself with that repulsing repellant as well as her contradiction about upholding the law.

At that moment, she heard a distinct grumbling sound coming from afar, sounding like an engine. She figured that would be the bus and waited for it to arrive with crossed paws in front of her as she was feeling comfortable in that position for the time being. The vehicle became visible with its flatly-big windshield in front and elephant driver who had a pretty big cigarette, in his frown-neutral mouth, which he was puffing hard out the opened window. Well, it was big considering the size differences and the good thing was that the bus was accommodated for mammals of all sizes, yet there was the danger of being stepped on if she were to let her guard down. Mammals weren't very actively aware during mornings and she didn't want to become a mish-mash of stew on the floor.

She waited for it to come in front of her and stop, but when it did with reduced speed, it didn't stop and she heard the engine to roar even louder as if more fuel was being pushed into it, which made her chest to tighten and her to shout very piercingly while running behind the rumbling mass of steel. She wasn't being noticed and was starting to lose ground with the machine, thus her paws banged against the frame several times to which the bus screeched loudly and got her to put her paws on top her ears and lower her pace as it came to a full stop.

The doors opened inwardly with a crash and she jumped inside in irritation and fast breath. " _Next time gesture, dammit!_ " shouted the driver from the front with a hoarse voice as he coughed and she heard the cracking of the transmission as the bus started moving again with the closing of the unoiled doors which slammed into one another. The situation was just like at Bunnyburrow, where you had to actually give a sign which would get the driver to stop but she didn't believe that to be necessary in Zootopia. Huh, she was wrong about quite some stuff…

With a sigh, her eyes scanned the inside of the rumbling giant and it seemed that it was rather empty. A few mammals here and there even when it was pretty early, an early work day, odd. A ticket was bought, not that anyone would have asked her for one at this hour if she hadn't, but she was an exemplary citizen, so it was out of the question to not buy herself one. There was no need for taking a seat because of the feeling of extreme energy, sitting would only make her hyperactive and a distraction was needed, so she went to the middle of the bus and grabbed a handle to support herself.

After several stops, the bus was starting to fill up. At one stop, a black wolf got into it looking rather tipsy. He started talking to somebody but Judy couldn't hear, nor was trying to, as she was deep in her thoughts. But as time progressed, she heard a howl from the back and laughter, consequently. That managed to jolt her back into reality, as she didn't expect something like that to happen at all. The black wolf then walked rather loudly towards the front with some swaying in his steps, and Judy noticed his drunken state right away.

 _Who in their right mind, gets drunk in the morning?_ As the wolf got in front of her, he just stopped. Judy didn't like what was happening and prepared to defend herself if needed, as she knew to be on her guard when such suspicious or dangerous behavior happened. In this case drunken.

The wolf began sniffing rather deeply and turned to look at the grey doe, well, his eyes were straying off a bit but it was understandable. At first, his expression was bleak, as well as drunken of course. But then, then it changed to a very wide grin and he chuckled rather loudly.

She got into a fighting stance, fear starting to kick in her system while she waited with anxiety for the wolf to make his move… But he never did.

"GÖÖd _mÖrning_ Oficer… bl-ah-hah… I can _scheeee_ … yo've had… fery _vun_ nightttt, hah... Must av bien sooome fierche _detaaaaiiiiiining_ … Bla-ha-ha-h." And just like that, he resumed slobbing with an intoxicated gait to the front while laughing maniacally.

Judy was baffled by the wolf's behavior, not knowing where that had come from. She released her energy-depleted breath and relaxed, happy with the outcome that nothing bad happened and contemplated upon his strange behavior... She figured it was his smashed state. _He probably poured liquor in his nose, the buffoon._ That got her to giggle lightly after picturing the sight but then her ears registered the wolf talking again, seemingly to one of the passengers. Not wanting to eavesdrop but bored to her bones, she did so anyway.

" _…ish all I'm sayin… Coyld you bewieve it? A bunny cosplain' copa. Whachya think he sawd to her? Ey, Oficer… evar sheen a baton dis big?_ " he quipped and guffawed hysterically, the passenger surprisingly joining him as well.

Judy didn't understand the joke and glanced at them with confusion and then, then her blood froze as she noticed that they were looking back, smirking. _Why are they looking at me? Why did he say that I'm cosplaying? What baton?_ She tried to piece the puzzle together, not liking to be kept in the dark. _So, he was talking about a night. I was with Nick this night. He then said that I'm cosplaying. Humpf, bigot. Wait, he sniffed when he was in front of me._

She put her paw in front of her nose and took a deep sniff but didn't detect anything unusual at first, just the smell of musk and… _Wait, that's Nick's scent… Oh no._

As she found out the cause, her awareness became broader for the worst. Those mammals with good sense of smell were looking at her from their shoulders, most smirking like idiots and the rest which were very few had disapproving glares. _Wha… I'm covered in Nick's scent and they think that we… that I… YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME…_ Embarrassment crept up her cheeks, making her to put her long black-tipped ears in front of her face as to try and shield herself from the world.

The situation was so unbelievable, she had never thought about such a crappy turn of events to even appear in her first days at the job, yet it did and now her body odor was mingled with that of Nick's, of a male fox, which was removing the need of words as there was just no other way to get that essence all around herself than being close to him, in this case just and only sleeping. But only she knew that and it was just useless to try and deny anything, who'd believe her.

The rest of the ride was pretty eventfuly-dissatisfactory for her. She looked at her feet the entire time, hearing snorts or chuckles from new nosy passengers on every stop which made her feel uncomfortable as never before. As the bus got to her stop and opened the doors with another loud slam, she ran off between the crowds of mammals, who were minding their own business, as fast as her body could, hiding in the closest back-alley she found. Breathing heavily and slightly shivering from the adrenaline which was being pumped in her every vein, she sat on the slightly dusty ground, trying to get herself in check.

 _Why didn't you think of this yesterday… you… you dumb, dumb bunny! Nevermind that, how am I supposed to show up at work like this. Oh look at the rookie, taking her job seriously as ever._ " _ARGH…_ I'll just have to improvise then," she told herself vocally in frustration and headed towards Precinct One.

As she got to the magnificent entrance, the lobby seemed empty which managed to holster some of the weight off her shoulders. But then, then she saw her worst fear. It was Benjamin Clawhauser. How could she get past without him detecting Nick's scent. And if he did detect it, everyone would know within hours about her false _misadventures_. There would be gossip and more jokes on her behalf, and that wouldn't make her already hard job any easier. _Unbelievable…_

Clawhauser on the other paw was getting himself comfortable for the day, putting his boxes of donuts within reach, so he wouldn't need to move much throughout the day. He was still slightly sleepy and didn't notice the grey bunny behind the lobby doors. As he was about to chew on a chocolate donut, he heard the front doors to open which grabbed his attention.

When he peeked a little as to see the mammal in question, all he heard was the sound of wind passing, as a grey bullet sped by him, disappearing very quickly from view and existence. He looked around confused but as he didn't find the cause, he kept on downing his beloved donuts, not contemplating about the event that took place just seconds ago, thinking that it was just his morning imagination even if there was an unfamiliar scent in the air.

Judy's plan had worked, and it seemed that Clawhauser didn't notice her or just didn't care. She calmed down and headed to the female locker room. She didn't meet any mammals in the corridor and begged the Carrot Lord for there not to be anyone in the lockers. As she opened the door carefully, she found that her prayers had been answered and jumped inside excitedly, got out of her uniform in a flash and hopped into the showers.

Iciness splashed into her face and the idea of freshness was demolished instantly as she reflexively moved away from the chilling stream. Shivers overtook her naked body and she hugged herself with a quivering jaw at the unexpected surprise which now clung onto her moist grey fur. But then, then came the increasing warmth with steam out the nostrils of the shower itself and with a testy paw, as to not fall into the same mistake again, she crept underneath the comfortable stream.

The coldness was replaced with the burning sensation of hotness as the skin under her fur tingled and tried to regulate itself to the environment that she had forced upon herself. The cold drops were washing down her body, replaced by melting affection which got her to _hummm_ with closed eyes and paws underneath her throat. But she had to hurry and finish her business, time was running out and even if she did have some to spare, enjoyment usually didn't end well, considering schedules and obligations.

As she finished her business, having scrubbed herself hard and lengthily, she got out and dried herself using the locker's furdrier. She only groomed her head, knowing full well that time was of the essence, got her spare uniform from her locker and put it on. It fit her perfectly and was in excellent condition. She looked herself in the mirror and smiled, feeling great as everything was turning out to be alright after all.

She put the wrinkled and odorful uniform inside her locker, locked it and headed to the bullpen, thinking that she still had spare time. There was some wondering if she should greet Clawhauser or just sneak by him, as the bullpen door was just a few meters on her left after exiting the corridor which she was in.

 _What if he asks you when you got here?_

 _You'll tell him that you were here earlier, that's it!_

She got to a conclusion, agreeing with herself to greet the cheetah, as she didn't want him to catch her while trying to slip by him and start asking questions. But with the opening of the door to the lobby, she saw plenty of officers going on their duties which confused her profoundly. _When I got here, there was nobody! I didn't take that long in the showers…_

Trying her best not to look disappointed, she got to Clawhauser's desk, thinking that he would see her but there was no response because she wasn't tall enough and only a little of her erect ears were going over the desk, yet Clawhauser was too preoccupied with his donuts to even notice them. Judy, hating the way everything was designed to accommodate larger mammals, huffed in anger. She took a few steps back and coughed as to try and get the feline's attention.

Clawhauser's ears twitched but he couldn't find the sound's owner as the boxes of donuts were blocking his view, and Judy, seeing his frustration, moved to the right, right into his view. "Ah, I was wondering if it was just my mind going cray-cray. Hey, Judy," he welcomed jovially, wiping leftover crumbs off his face.

The doe tried to keep a straight-face at his antics. Seeing the cheetah being opposite of what he's supposed to be was very strange for her but yet again, a bunny cop was no less stranger. "Hey, Clawhauser, just came by to say hi before going to the bullpen." But just as she was about to head out, she saw the look on Ben's face, making her halt any further movements.

" _Ehmm_ … I don't… I don't think you can do that as it's… well it's over," he explained with a sad smile.

Judy already knew that when she saw the lobby before greeting Clawhauser, but in order to avoid suspicion by the feline, she had to act accordingly and not show him that it was already known to her as to avoid him of finding out about her morning endeavors. "When did it end?" she asked with a defeated look, making the cheetah gloomy, as he seemed to be feeling her disappointment.

"Don't worry, it's not a big deal… I know that the Chief will forgive you on this one. There won't be a problem, no problem at all," he assured, trying to cheer her up and his attempt managed to dissipate some of her bitter mood, creating a small smile on her face because hope had entered her small but resilient body.

"Really? _Ahmm_ … has he called for me or something?" She knew that she was still in deep waters and had to know what the verdict would be. But instead of answering her, he stood motionless and because he wasn't breaking his thousand-yard stare, her heart prickled and stopped beating, while her veins began freezing from the inside out, chilling her and getting her to rub her shoulders.

 _Is it that bad… Please no… Why isn't he saying anything! I'm not going to get fired am I…_

She got a reaction out of him at last as he munched wetly with his mouth and looked directly at her with an expression filled with worry and disappointment. His mouth opened as he was to say something but stopped midway, while one of his paws stood in the air. She couldn't believe what was happening, or more importantly, what had happened…

 _I'm fired-_

"No, not a thing," he recalled and chuckled. "That means we're to celebrate, I saw these new donuts on TV last week. I think you'll like them a lot!"

That made Judy to let go of her breath she didn't knew was holding, the built up stressful anxiety exiting her body. She felt relieved knowing that the Chief wasn't going to reprimand her, and that he probably gave her assignment to someone that would give it to her. So, now she needed to find that someone and get on to work.

Not knowing who to seek, that same feeling of dread came back as time was progressing, meaning that with every passing minute the chance of her getting into trouble for not fulfilling her duties grew. _Who, who, who… If only I knew the mammal that is in charge of communications…_

At that moment, Clawhauser's desk phone rang, making him focus his attention on it. He picked it up he made a shush sound with one of his fingers while glancing at Judy. "ZPD, Officer Clawhauser speaking… Oh, Wolfard, that you?... Sure, no prob. What do you need?... Oh, I really don't have it on me. Go to the guys in records, it must be there… Don't sweat it, later." After the cheetah hung up, he looked back at Judy, who was ecstatic and impatient as her right leg was going crazy, while the sight was getting Clawhauser's ability to contain himself non-existent as well as gullible.

" _Awwwwwww,_ " he squealed extremely loud, making Judy cover hear ears as best as she could but it was in vain, the shrilling sound being too piercing, thus she began hearing loud ringing in both her ears, making her scrunch her face in pain. "You're just too cute... Oh no, I'm…" He understood what he did and covered his mouth with both paws, looking extremely horrified at what he had just done from impulse.

Judy on the other paw didn't hear any of the feline's words as her ears weren't still functional. She decided to open her eyes as the pain on both sides of her temple was subsiding. What she saw made her confused, the cheetah was holding his paws in front of his mouth and looked haunted. She popped out her ears and managed to regain some of her senses, remembering that she had a question for him before he became an eardrum annihilator. "Ben, can I ask you something?" she asked through the ringing and waited, anticipating his answer at any second but none came as he didn't even twitched, staying at the same position, same haunted expression.

" _Ehm_ mm, is something wrong?" To her question, she only received a single nod. She thought that he was acting very strange and awkward, making her come to the conclusion that maybe he could have said something during her deafness. "Is it something you said?" she fired blankly as it seemed that only by guessing what the problem was, she could get him to help her. To her luck she received a single nod.

"Okay, then there isn't a problem. I know you didn't mean what you've said, and I didn't actually hear any of it as well" -she searched for her next words while looking at the multi-colored terrazzo flooring- "which automatically means… that you haven't said anything!" She knew that what she just said was very stupid and that if Nick had heard her he would've been rolling on the floor from laughter, but it was worth a shot, and it seemed that it was working as the cheetah seemed to be relaxing, and he removed his paws off his mouth shortly after.

" _Aha_ … I guess you're right… sorry," he apologized nervously, scratching the underside of his chubby cheeks. "I did get carried away there and… Well, nevermind… tell me what you wanted to ask now."

That made Judy to beam at him. "Yes, great! I was going to ask you from whom I may get my assignment for the day because I missed rollcall as you know."

The question made the cheetah to instantly roll away to another part of the desk, and she could hear the rustling of paper while out of view. " _Usually I am the one that has those…_ " he spoke somewhat distracted, audibly focused on finding something in the mess of his so called workspace. But after a minute of rummaging soundly, Judy caught a very loud sigh and roll of wheels towards her location. "But it seems that yours isn't here," he finished gloomily and snatched a donut as to eat his bad mood away.

Judy felt coldness on the end of her limbs, which made her hug herself across the waist, but she didn't abandon hope and pressed on. "Then… where else can I find it if not here?" she probed firmly.

"Ahmm… if it's not here… then it should be in Chief's office."

That managed to get her anxiety levels to a whole new level, as she was not only late for work but she had to go to Bogo's office, explain herself and accept her punishment, which made her feel faint but she didn't show any of those feelings. "C-c-c…. Could you call the Chief and ask him if I could go visit him?" was her request that was carried out with a pleading smile.

"Oh, but of course! I'm sure that you won't even need to go up there. He's very busy and he'll just mail it to me," he explained excitedly, rolled his chair towards the intercom and dialed Chief Bogo's office. Judy watched the events unfold in front of her and tried her best to overhear something from the phone, if possible, with her satellite ears of hers.

After a few rings the line was picked up. " _What, Clawhauser? There aren't any appointments at this hour. If you're calling me to tell me about some new Gazelle song, I'm going to come down there AND FLUSH ALL YOUR DAMN DONUTS DOWN THE TOILET!_ " came the yelling of Bogo through the phone, getting Clawhauser to wince at the loud sound, almost dropping the phone. She managed to catch the last part with her paws going across her chest, while contemplations were made if Bogo had a firearm and had just shot with it, it sounded pretty much like it.

As Clawhauser managed to catch the bouncing in his paws phone, he immediately tried to save his donuts. "NO… I mean it's not that, Chief. I called to ask if you could mail me Judy's assignment for the day, because she is down here in front of me… It would beeeee… faster and she wouldn't need to bother you, _heheh_." He didn't sound very convincing and Judy noticed that with every few words said, he'd glance at his donuts, and then back to someplace else. There was some static on the phone, no sound coming from the other end for a while.

" _Who?_ "

"Officer Judy Hopps, Chief," answered Clawhauser but the same awkward silence befell the other end of the line. Why had he just said her name again?

"Who the hell is that?! If you're playing a joke, I'll COME DOWN THERE AND RIP YOUR TAIL OFF!"

Judy could hear the yelling from the phone but couldn't understand anymore what was being said. She could see was the frustration upon the feline's forehead and the look of fear on his face, and knew that the exchange wasn't going very well. Also when Clawhauser had said her name, the yelling had started, which made her nervousness increase tenfold in the physical manifestation of her thumping foot.

"T-t-the b-b-bunny... J-Judy H-H-Hopps, s-s-she g-got hired l-like y-yesterday. D-don't y-you re-e-emember?" He was so horrified that the stuttering sounded chronical, as if he had it his whole life. But then the same thing reoccurred, the deafening silence and the intoxicating sound of static, the same sound that seemed to be increasing in volume with the passing of time.

Judy saw the cheetah looking around erratically with a quivering mouth and she began feeling his anxiety as well, her fingers on her feet receiving stinging sensations around them, which got her to rub them against the floor. And this was just from being late a few minutes? Well, not a few but considering that nothing bad had happened and her time constraint as well as condition, there wasn't another way. Yet, she had gotten herself in trouble and there wasn't anyone else to blame but her, as well as a certain red furry mammal who poked her memory with his taunting smirk and something else, but there was no time for thinking about that.

" _Hummm… oh the little bunny. I thought she quit. I didn't see her this morning. Nevermind, send her in then as she is already here._ "

"Well, can't you just send me the assignment, there is no need—" but he couldn't finish as the water buffalo's shout silenced him.

" _NOW!_ " And the line went dead with an extremely loud bang. But Judy didn't register the sound from the phone, she heard it from somewhere upstairs.

"Heheh… sorry sweetheart, I tried my best," he apologized with a guilty smile which was visibly straining to be kept whole.

Judy, looking downcast, knew that she couldn't do anything else but accept her fate. "Don't worry, you couldn't do anything else. I'm glad that you at least tried," she reassured him with a small smile but lost it when she headed towards the stairs. While she was climbing them, she thought about the exchange between Ben and the Chief. _Did Bogo not know who I was? Clawhauser told him like three times…_

 _Of course he forgot. He doesn't care about me one bit, only wants me to get out of his fur._

When she got to the 2nd floor, some fellow officers passed by her without even acknowledging her even when she greeted them, which drooped her ears further. Why was everyone acting so cold against her, was the fact that she was a bunny so repulsing and filthy? Did they believe, deep down, that she was worthless and unreliable?

Opening the door, which linked the stairwell with the second floor, she quickly saw the beautiful-silverish metal-glass railing, which circled around the balcony that overlooked the lobby, while the filled offices could be seen on the other side. She got near the corner behind which was the corridor that lead to Chief Bogo's office, her final destination which she hoped wasn't going to be final for her career. She suppressed all her worries, to the best of her abilities, and continued forward with all her confidence. _I'll just get in there, take it all and get out. Simple as that… Yup!_

As she neared the giant wooden door, with a blurry window above the middle, of Bogo's office, fear started creeping up her again. _Why, why, why does this day have to begin so bad… Carrot Lord, please… just this once…_ She mustered her leftover courage, knocked on the door and awaited for a response. After a moment, a loud grunt was received which she figured meant ' _Yes_ '.

Jumping towards the towering door's knob, she caught onto it with both paws and began twisting it with all her muscle strength. She managed to get a click, and the door opened inwards slightly. She didn't bother closing it, it being just too damn big which in most cases would've gotten her a remark but there was nothing as such from Bogo, thus she proceeded towards his desk and noticed him reading something on it, yet he didn't even glance at her.

Slowly but firmly, she got to the two chairs situated in front of the desk and parked herself in between, waiting for a response, yet the only sounds she could hear were the rustling of paper and loud breathing. Figuring that the best that could be done is to wait, with a hop towards the chair that wasn't for her size, she situated her furry butt and tried to get comfortable, as comfortable as possible, which by her squirming and readjustments didn't seem much. At least the leathery surface wasn't rough like those plastic ones at the briefing room. But because of the size difference, she just couldn't put her paws on the handles for support and that was greatly getting her to want and cross her arms.

After managing to find herself a good spot around the edge, her eyes moved towards the intimidating buffalo, whose reading glasses seemed to be masking the real construct of rage that was underneath. _Why is he breathing like he's got something in his throat… and why is he acting like a statue… Can't he just be a normal mammal…_

"A-a pretty… nice office… you got here, Chief," she tried to initiate a small talk, but it seemed fruitless, as the Chief only made a sharp exhale which she took for a hint to shut up, while he continued reading the paper in front of him, only moving his eyes left and right.

Judy on the other paw was caressing both hear ears and was looking around the office rapidly, waiting that moment when the Chief would start talking, dreading it with all her existence. A shelf with a lot of pictures, medals and trophies managed to grab her curious eyes. In most of the pictures was the Chief with other officers or government officials but the details weren't visible due to the distance. There were quite a lot of big medals, some gold other silver. She thought that they would be pretty heavy for her, considering their size differences with Bogo.

 _Someday I may earn one…_

A loud grunt snapped her out of her dream state, and she turned to gaze directly at Bogo. He was glaring at her with a murderous expression. Slowly, he pulled his reading glasses off his head and put them aside, not uttering a single word nor sound. Without them, the disguise of a civil mammal was replaced with one of strictness, firmness and intimidation.

He kept the silence for some time, making Judy extremely agitated, and she felt the temperature in the room go up a few degrees. But alas, it all ended with the beginning, "Do you know why I called you here?" he asked with a bleak tone which surprised Judy so much that her mouth hanged open for a few seconds. Was she still sleepy or had he just spoken in such a manner as of now? Why was there this hidden meaning in his voice as if he were a sleeping volcano?

She figured that being truthful would be her best course of action. "Because I was late," she returned downcastly, feeling like she was in high school and being scolded by the headmaster. She'd have to go there, explain herself and then get scolded for a relatively annoying period of time during which if she was to talk back, it would just be prolonged. She hated those memories and didn't think that such segments from the past would come back to bite her in the butt. But as she saw that there was no other choice but play along, she did just that.

"And the reason for that being?" was that same nonchalant persistence.

She saw his mouth starting to twitch, betraying his fake calm exterior. Knowing that if she told him the real reason, he would think she was mocking or worse, lying to him. She almost couldn't believe the events from yesterday, let alone her boss. Knowing that an answer was expected from her, she reasoned to give one, which in her opinion would satisfy his, unsavory for her, curiosity. "I… I lost track of time," she answered the truth but without any details being carried with it.

"Lost track? Doing what exactly?" He wasn't letting go, and that wasn't favorable for her as her mind raced for an answer that would be true, yet untrue.

"I took a shower a bit longer than I use to," was the answer that managed to relax her internally, as she knew he couldn't probe for anything else, not having a pitch to throw his ball anymore. _What, are you going to ask me? How I took the shower? I don't think so._

"A shower?" he repeated with a quizzical expression.

"Yes, Sir."

That made the Chief huff loudly and rub the top of his temple. He then leaned towards Judy, piercing her with his hostile glare and making her go back towards the end of the oversized chair with her legs now gliding on the surface as she had retracted from the edge. "Listen here, Hopps," his leaning towards her slowed its intensity.

She was now shrinking into the chair's cushions as much as she could, feeling trapped and wanting to be anywhere but there.

"This isn't some playground where you get to do whatever and whenever you want." He stopped his advance, not moving towards her anymore and keeping the silence that was making the situation even direr for Judy. "You've been on the job for how much now? Three days and thi-…"

Judy zoned out, not listening to his lecture. She wanted to correct him that it was two days but forced herself not to, as it would only prolong her stay in this forsaken office. She couldn't have walked around smelling like Nick as it would make mammals say how unprofessional her attitude towards her job is and not only that, there would be assumptions for things that hadn't happened. That wasn't going to be something that was to her liking, and if she was to be late again because of such an issue, then so be it.

But then, if the cost would be her job, maybe it wouldn't have been worth it, maybe she should've just not cared like Nick had told her to, maybe her own fears of being labeled as such had made her ignorant to the reality of the situation and how grim it could become. "…and you say that you're fit for the job, yet you can't even show up for work on time. Do you have anything to say for yourself, Hopps?"

If a defense was attempted, there would be probably more lecturing and verbal barrages from the buffalo's part, which got her to look at her rested feet and stay silent, waiting for the final verdict and hoping that it wouldn't be anything associated with her precious badge.

Bogo watched her for some moments and then leaned back into his creaking chair. "Report to the janitor, tell him that you are going to help him today" -he picked up his glasses and grabbed a document from the stack- "you're dismissed."

"But, Sir… W-what do you mean… can't I…"

Without giving her time to finish, he slammed his hoof onto the desk with all his force, creating a deafening bang which made Judy jump from the chair and land a few meters away from it. A piece of what seemed to be a broken intercom fell off the Chief's desk and clattered on the wooden floor. "OUT!" he yelled viciously to which she didn't even think of objecting and ran towards the door. But before she was to exit the office, the Chief stopped her, "Hopps."

 _Please, what now. Wasn't this enough…_ She looked over her shoulder at him, trying her best not to look terrified but her nose was stabbing her back with every twitch. "Y-yes, Chief?" was her quiet reply that even made her ponder if it was heard.

"Tell Clawhauser to bring me a new intercom," he muttered without even bothering to look at her.

"Yes, Sir," she now acknowledged firmly and headed towards the small opening of the door. She tried to pull it back as to close it but it only budged slightly which meant that she wouldn't be able to close it. With a push forward as to gain some distance and use it to generate speed, she got it into a position of her liking and glanced towards Bogo as to see if he was watching but he hadn't changed anything of his old position, only slowly moving his brown eyes as he read the paper. _If I get crushed between the frame, I don't think he'll even notice…_

Judy started pulling the door with all her might while exiting the room. With every step back, the speed was increasing, and when it was about to meet the frame, she let go and it closed with a satisfying click but audible bash. Appeased with her accomplishment, she headed towards the lobby, as she had to ask Clawhauser where the janitor was and to tell him about the Chief's obliterated intercom.

Getting to Clawhauser's desk, she saw that he had already downed 2 boxes of donuts and was almost finishing a 3rd one. "Hey, Clawhauser," she tried to get his attention, which this time, worked from the first try.

"Oh, Judy! How did it go?"

"Well, I need to find the janitor and tell you to get the Chief a new intercom."

"A new intercom?" he asked with furrowed brows but managed to figure it out. "Yea, he does have a temper, _hehe_... Oh, I'm taking up your time. The janitor, he's in the room just before the female lockers. His name is Matei. Tell him I said hi, would you?" As he gave her the needed information the feline started going through the desk's drawers, apparently searching for something.

"Sure thing, thanks." Judy took her leave and headed towards her punishment. As she got to the supposed door, behind which was the supposed janitor, she took a few deep breaths, knocked and waited for a response but got none. The door looked worn and it there was no indication that this was where she was supposed to be, yet there was this faint scent on which she couldn't place a word upon. Thinking if she should just go in or not, the conclusion was made that she had slacked off too much and didn't have any more time to waste, so she opened the door which wasn't that big like the Chief's and closed it behind her.

She was instantly met with the sharpness of that same scent, and she was certain it was the smell of burnt tobacco. But this one was so sharp and heavy that it got her to cough in strain while one of her eyes tried to spot who she was searching for. The place was pretty cramped, filled with cleaning products, mops and all kinds of other stuff. The smell was starting to sting the insides of her nostrils with every inhale, thus making her throat to feel dry and her lungs to rebel against her choice of fuel by squeezing themselves and making her continue cough lightly and tightly.

She didn't need a lot of time to pinpoint from where it was coming, as she saw 2 medium-sized pointy horns from behind what looked like an office chair which wasn't in a very good condition, having many holes and tears. The rest of the body couldn't be seen, as the chair was obstructing her view but she was sure the smoke was coming from that direction as the light was making its existence known. She knew that there was a job to do but somebody breaking the rules in front of her, it just didn't sit right.

"Excuse me?" she tried getting the mammal's attention and succeeded while her nose wiggled about from the incredibly unwelcomed and unhealthy air. The chair started turning and Judy saw that the mammal in question was a black goat, wearing an old blue janitor uniform which in her opinion looked terrible. She could see that the goat was fairly old, as some parts of his black fur had visible white spots.

"Oi, what ya need," returned the goat nonchalantly and exhaled some smoke towards her direction, making her wince with teary eyes that were stinging dryly under the toxicity of the smoke cloud. The surprising discomfort got her to inhale deeply which filled her filters of life with even more disgusting tar, poisoning her blood and making her feel light-headed, as well as to cough harshly in a futile attempt to clear her organic respirators.

"It's against—" -she coughed several more times- "the rules to smoke in here, Sir."

The supposed question made him draw from his cigar, but this time, he didn't aim the smoke towards her. "Sir? The Chief sent ya, aye? Just great, gotta babysit ya all day now," he grumbled in an annoyed tone.

Judy felt slightly hazy, but even so, she could see that he was trying to dodge any answer towards her request. "Yes, Sir, he did. And I found you through Clawhauser who sends his regards."

"Enough with 'o bullshit formalities. Just call me Matei. Wait… didn't that cheetah give ya something for good ol' meh?" he asked, looking somewhat interested in her response.

She knew that there wasn't anything for her to bring, so she just gave him a negative answer, motioning it with her head, while trying to hold her coughing as the smoke was too damn heavy and she didn't know how much more she could stay in this diseased-filled room.

"That fat greedy ass, can't spare one donut for meh. Yet I'm the one that has to clean 'em up after he dumps them down the shitter."

The response surprised Judy in a bad way. For her, what the goat said was very rude and she couldn't stand for it. "Si-Matei… Could you not be rude towards Clawhauser, as he is not a bad mammal. If you want to insult him, don't do it while I'm here," she declared with incredible firmness and crossed her arms while her expression turned sardonic to which the goat narrowed his eyes at her and chuckled.

"Rude? What the hell's this? Don't make meh laugh. That cheetah clogs toilets more than anyone else in this Precinct. Don't tell meh I'm supposed to be ok with that and keep my trap shut."

Judy's response was only a loud _humpf_. Because she wasn't accustomed to the environment, there was that feeling of suffocation and drowning, while her nostrils were now practically on fire as mucus had accumulated in large quantities in its desperate attempt of protection against the vile air. But nothing was stopping it and every breath was more painful than the other.

The smoke in the room was now making her nauseous, so she didn't want to remain in there much longer. She couldn't understand how the goat could stay in such an infection-filled place because of that energy-draining feeling that same cloud of toxins was making her experience. "At least could you stop smoking?"

"Why?"

Her inhale was very forced and strained. "Because it's against the rules."

"And?"

"You aren't allowed to do this."

"Sure I am. This is my place, and I do whatever I want to. If ya don't like it, get the hell out."

Judy saw that she was getting nowhere with trying to argue with the stubborn goat. She knew what her next action would've been if she wasn't already in trouble, knowing full well that the goat in question was here long before her. She knew that he had been doing this for a long time, thus accepted her lost battle which drooped her ears even further.

"Just tell me what to do because I don't want to blackout here." She didn't care if she blacked out, it was just that the floor she was standing on looked disgusting, and there was no way in hell that it would be hugged from her today or ever. _And this mammal is the head of cleaning? And he can't even clean his own workplace?_

"Eager are we? Just grab 'e spare uniform from the closet behind ya. I don't think it'll fit you but 'ey, can't pleasure everybody." He turned his back to Judy and kept reading some newspaper from before she entered the room.

She took a few steps back and faced the closet which was just on the left from the room's entrance. Opening it, there were several uniforms which were all identical to the one the goat was wearing. They were different sizes but there wasn't one that could fit her. The goat was slightly taller than her but his waist was way bigger so none of the uniforms were suited for her body type which made her fingers restless.

"What am I supposed to put on? None of these would fit me! Am I to look like a kangaroo all day?" as Judy uttered the last part, she immediately regretted it. It was very rude of her to make a speciest remark but it seemed that the goat didn't give a crap about it, so she just waited for his answer as the dread faded into nothingness. A whisper against the wind.

"Do what ya want. Use your service uniform for all I care. If ya're ready, take a mop, cleaning products, a bucket, go to the toilet on the 2nd floor and get to work. I'll come by later."

She didn't want to ruin her spare police uniform like she did with her other one. Not seeing anything else she could do or say, she took the smallest uniform she could see and went to the female lockers. As the change was done, she went to the mirror to see how it looked. It was extremely saggy and indeed looked as if she were a kangaroo. Facepawing herself, she went on to collect her tools for cleaning in great haste because of the incredible determination of getting out of the goat's smoke chamber.

 _Just endure, just today… just… today._

When she managed to get everything and exit the repulsive room, she leaned against a wall and began breathing the fresher air, air that felt blissful, air that managed to bring back the energy within her that the toxic smoke had robbed her off. The pressure in her brain began dissipating but the stinging in her nose and lungs remained even so. She looked towards the janitor's door and scowled scornfully but her expression died instantly when she felt air try to force itself out of her throat, and that made her to cough a few more times. After that her composure began coming back and she removed some imaginary particles from the fur on her forehead.

 _How much I hate cigars…_

After getting everything to the 2nd floor's restrooms, she started preparing to clean. The mop in question was a bit heavy for her liking and slightly long, yet that didn't mean that the job was impossible to accomplish, nothing of that sort. But just as she was about to start, someone entered the place and she saw that it was Matei. He looked very serious and seemed pressured which got her gulp in realization. _Something is wrong…_

"Listen, ya gotta go to the 1st floor and unclog one of the toilets. Clawhauser's done it again. As I remembered, ya said that he was a very good mammal. I'd like to show ya the monster he's really, so ya'll have to deal with what he be done. Now, go."

"You want me to do that all by myself?" she asked, sounding exasperated with notes of distaste at the idea of having to do such a task.

"So, ya're telling me ya can't do it? Pft!" Matei scoffed with scorn and disappointment.

"It's not that I can't but why can't you help me?"

"I do that, I'd not be able to finish everything for the day. So, I'll ask again. Are ya gonna do this?"

For Judy, it sounded like a challenge, and her personality wouldn't let her back off from it even if this challenge was the most disgusting thing in the world for her. She frowned, saying to herself that everything was going to be ok, and with all her willpower, she managed to say the next two words with incredible tension in her throat. "I am."

"Good, everything ya need's already there, just don't make a bigger mess."

With a slow pace and drooped ears, she headed towards her inevitable doom.

* * *

It was midday, Precinct One was fairly empty as most officers were out on their duties. Judy was sitting on a bench in front of floor one's restroom, recuperating from the horrors she had to endure. It was her lunchbreak, yet she didn't feel like eating anything at that very moment. The smell on her was horrid, thus making her nauseous every minute or so. _Why did it have to explode? Why did it even explode?!_

She played with a tuft on her fur which had a different color after the ' _exciting events_ '. The sight made her frown. She wanted so badly to go and take a shower, as the stench was blocking her nose and assaulting her eyes, yet she couldn't, fearing that if the Chief found out that she had skipped her duties, he would put her on the same assignment again which she didn't want to be on even one bit ever again. The thought alone got her to shudder. _Just several more hours, Judy, and it will end… and everything will be ok… I hope…_

She pulled some paper towels and tried to wipe the stench off her, at least the one that hadn't dried yet. _I wonder what Nick is doing right now. Oh, for sure he's doing better than me, and if he found about this…_ Her eyes widened. _He mustn't ever find about this, or I would never hear the end of it._

But more importantly, was she going to see him again? They hadn't exchanged numbers and the place he was supposedly living seemed like a decoy so that she wouldn't be able to trace him back. She should've asked him of how they could meet again but she had forgotten… But all was not lost, Zootopia was indeed a big city but she knew how he worked his hustles and could just wait him out on the places she had seen them go to. Yea, that would do it. But now, now there were matters that needed attending to.

She finished cleaning what she could from herself and plopped her chin onto her tired paws. _Foxes aren't as scary as I thought, at least Nick isn't. His reaction when I grabbed the fox repellant, just priceless._ The thought alone made her giggle silently, bringing some of her spirit back. _He is pretty harmless… and fluffy. Oh and when I managed to embarrass him. Just seeing his smugness disappear entirely was so satisfying. Although I was more embarrassed than him… maybe a lot… but hey, it's not like I have experience with these kind of things! And did I make him aroused? I did! I've never seen a fox's…_

 _MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER, JUDITH!_ She grumbled something inaudible to herself and started caressing her ear because of her explicit exploration of her imagination, exploration that wasn't appropriate for the place she was at. But realizing that there wasn't such a place anywhere, even in her rented apartment which's walls were as thin as paper, she scoffed angrily and squirmed in her seat from the urges that couldn't be stifled.

Getting close to the end of her lunchbreak, she started sorting her equipment, getting ready to go help Matei on the floor above. While sorting, she heard footsteps coming from the lobby. Her curiosity got the better of her, as she hadn't seen a mammal in the last hour. But as she saw who it was, she wished that she never had looked. It was Lieutenant Weaselton, looking scruffy as ever. _Does he know that fur brushes even exist?_

She looked away from the weasel, not wanting him to see her, knowing full well that nothing good would come out of a conversation with him but the universe seemed to have something else in mind for Judy, as the weasel managed to spot and recognize her.

"Who do we have here? If it isn't Flopsy the Mopsy. What, you asked for a transfer so you could make the PD a better place?" the weasel jabbed with mockery and the words managed to touch a nerve, getting her temper to raise because of a deeply rooted memory that was linked to those same words.

Judy hated his guts but if she talked back, the weasel could get her into more trouble than she already was in, and it seemed that his partner was missing, so nobody would be able to keep him in check like last time. She got even more frustrated at feeling this helpless but her best course of action would be to just lay low, for now. Thus she turned around and answered with restraint, "No, Sir. I was late, so this is my punishment," she answered blankly, hiding her true feelings behind a very thin mask.

"Hah, I've always known that your species are unfit for anything serious. Like being a cop, Mopsy," he taunted her and threw his always present toothpick, which seemed to have its roots always between his teeth, at her direction. She didn't even flinch, staying calm with a sullen expression. But inside, she was thinking of different ways to beat the crap out of the weasel, each one more painful than the other until they started scaring her.

"I don't like the way you're looking at me, Cottontail," he added and got another toothpick from his pocket, putting it in its rightful place. "But I get it, you've had a shitty day. So don't sweat it! One day you may replace that old grumpy fart," he quipped maliciously and headed towards the restroom.

"Stupid overgrown weasel," she muttered in anger, needing to release some steam. Just as she was ready to move out, she figured to check everything one more time so there would be no need to come back down if she were to forget something. While checking, ruckus was heard from inside the restroom Weaselton had entered. She didn't think much of the sounds and continued checking but the tingle of worry came into existence inside of her.

After a minute she was sure that everything was in its rightful place and prepared to move when suddenly, the door of the restroom flung open and from behind it came out Weaselton, who had a shit-eating grin. Judy saw him and knew that something was very, very wrong. _He did something… HE DID SOMETHING!_

"Because you've been good, Mopsy, I left you a fresh gift," he guffawed, laughing hard with paws holding his stomach while taking his leave.

Judy watched him for some moments, hoping that he hadn't done anything extremely bad inside and headed towards the restroom. As she neared the door, she began praying to the Carrot Lord. But just after her entrance, what she saw was beyond her most vivid imagination. A sight that she wouldn't be ever able to erase from her memory. Who would have thought that shit could literally hit the fan. In this case the ceiling. "Sweet cheese and crackers…" she whispered with eyes that were trying to exit her sockets.

She slumped to her knees, feeling hopeless. But then, the feeling of hopelessness was replaced by pure anger, anger that filled her entirety and she just didn't care anymore, repercussions be damned. "THAT SHABBY WEASEL!" she yelled hysterically and ran to find him.

Getting to the lobby and not seeing him anywhere, she figured to ask Clawhauser, more like demand. "CLAWHAUSER, WHERE'S WEASELTON!?" she yelled, stirring the cheetah so badly that he dropped his donuts all over the floor and hid himself with a box which he snatched from the desk.

"W-w-wh-a-a-t-t…" he stuttered, not knowing what was happening. Judy realized that she had scared the cheetah out of his fur because of her impulsiveness and sighed hard, asking quickly after as normally as she could.

"Where did Weaselton go? Did you see him? Where!?" she demanded extremely fast, sounding very impatient for his answer.

"O-o-h-h, yea h-he just exited the b-b-building a—"

But Judy was already running, not wanting to let Duke escape. Opening the front doors, she sprinted towards the parking lot and saw a patrol car that was starting to move. It headed towards her direction and as it was passing, there on the window was Weaselton.

"I figured you'd like it. _No need to thank me,_ " he jabbed, laughed maniacally while disappearing from view as the car got on the street.

"Hey, WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING!?" she shouted strongly but to no avail, as the car didn't stop moving and disappeared down the street. _I can't believe this… I don't want to believe this… Why do I have to believe this?_

She went back inside, crestfallen and knowing full well that she needed to clean up that mess. Just thinking about it made her shudder in disgust, disgust that was making her stomach turn, her lungs to drown, her mouth to burn, and her sinuses to clog. But it had to be done, she had no other reasonable choice.

Well, there was but its nature consisted of inconsistencies and she wasn't going to back off after having come this far.

* * *

It was very late, around 9 PM. Judy had just finished her work for the day and was heading to the showers with a very slow pace, as she was extremely exhausted from the days' torture. She smelled foul and wanted to get rid of the stench, hoping that would be remotely possible.

 _Why did he want us to work overtime? Couldn't have we just finished it some other time. Why did it have to be today? At least tomorrow is the start of the weekend. I've never thought I could be this happy for a day off._ _Gotta rid myself from this stench first!_

As she got to the female lockers door, she saw a note on it but wasn't interested in reading it and just entered. Getting rid of her dirty cleaning uniform, she hopped into the showers and turned the shiny valves but from a distance as she wasn't going to repeat the same mistake from the morning. But nothing happened and that complexly puzzled her, thus she continued turning the valves until it wasn't possible to do so. Why wasn't the water coming down, why was her cleansing being sabotaged… "You've got to be joking…" she muttered and tried the other showers. Nothing. "Has somebody cursed me?"

She remembered the note on the door and went to read it. Not forgetting that she was fully naked, she first poked her head out as to see if it was clear. Then she opened the door fully and saw what was written on the note. ' _Water stopped due to leak. Expected restoration, tomorrow morning._ ' She closed the quietly door and muttered. "Guess I'll have to wait 'till I get home then." Getting back into the dirty uniform, as she wasn't going to ruin her police one, she headed towards her rented apartment, hoping to get a good shower there.

After a not so long bus ride, which had been filled with weird looks from passengers, and a small walk to her flat, she had arrived at last. The place wasn't very good but it was enough for her. She didn't have much room and had to use a communal shower and toilet, but the rent wasn't very high which was why she accepted to live there in the first place.

Getting to her floor, she instantly headed to the showers but what she saw made her freeze. "No…" she whispered. There was a line for the shower, around three-four mammals. Judy was too exhausted to want to wait in the corridor, so she dashed into her room, locking the door behind her. "I'll just sit here for half an hour and when it's clear, I'll take one. Yes, that's it," she said to herself more than anyone else and sat near her bed, careful not to touch her sheets with her filthiness.

But her body had different thoughts on the matter. Slowly, her blurry eyes began to close while every new breath caused more exhaustion and sleepiness to overtake her. "Jus-t… a few… more…. min… _mmhmm_ …" and she fell asleep, back against the bed frame and head facing the floor. The events from the day taking their toll on her.

Never would've she imagined herself in such a position, a position of shame and degradation. She had scored valedictorian, it was a great feat and it had to serve as evidence that she was fit for work, yet she was met with prejudice and hostility. Yea, it was her fault that she was late but putting her to help with cleaning instead of overseeing the streets where she could stop mammals from hurting others, it was unacceptable, it was a decision made from bigotry and short- sightedness.

A punishment taken to the extreme, a punishment not fit for such a minor mistake. A punishment that had ruined her whole day but she had pulled through and hadn't complained because she was Judy Hopps. But even Judy Hopps could feel the animosity at her superior, and this was just the beginning.

If she thought that parking duty was bad, it was now considered heavenly, it was considered sweet and desirable.

It was, perfect.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

\- Another revisit. Both my thumbs are throbbing in pain. I lost a segment of chapter 23 because who the fuck knows. Yea, I should be working on it and not revisiting old chapters. But they need to be damn fixed because I'm adding a new integration to my style. You know, these first chapters have always been lower quality than those after 9-10. Damn… Duct tape should do it, _hehe_.

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	4. Attachment

**Chapter Four**

 **Attachment**

 _There was the sound of gunfire again, distant yet close. It could always be heard during nighttime as then most mammals who'd seek to assert themselves or make some change, usually for the worse, would roam the streets in search of victims. There was police but they just never patrolled the region, they never did. Some said that the island was cursed, others that there was something below but it all came to the lack of control, or was it actually the opposite? And with that came constricted anarchy in the form of gangs who'd offer protection for fees while intimidating those who dare decline. Such was life in Happytown._

 _Nick was staring at the recently-painted ceiling of his room at his family home which was located close to the docks but not close enough for the sea to be heard. He was under a thick layer of blankets which were needed in order for him not to freeze to death as the central heating was again broken, thus the winter coldness roamed around the small house where he lived. He didn't like it but one just got used to such discomforts of life and he knew that as he had seen mammals who didn't even have a home, which had pushed him to accept how things were._

 _He was young, a few years off starting school, but that didn't mean that he wasn't starting to understand how the world worked, not at all. He could see the deception which his mind couldn't yet fully understand as he lacked a lot of experience, while his parents would try and keep him away from such activities and hardships as best they could. They were both young, father and mother, but they showed him a lot of love which was all what he wanted, what he needed._

 _But why did the world have to be in such a condition, a condition of crumble, a condition hate… Shouts came from behind his thin window, which's base was covered in snow, and the sounds of glass shattering against hard surface crashed on the street, which got Nick to groan and try and hide himself further into the blankets as he put them over his head but that made the lower end of the chilly sheets to touch his feet and he curled himself into a ball of fluff, his long but skinny tail going between his legs in an instinctive attempt to shield his body for warmth, yet it still lacked enough fur to do so. The ceiling creaked as steps became known from above, which was definitely the neighbor who wasn't a small mammal at all, and when walking was done, the feeling for those below was as if a large truck was moving around._

 _Nick sneezed as some hair got into his nose and the idea of sleep was now becoming distant, it was becoming impossible to achieve because his mind had entered the dimension of thinking. His dad had promised him to take him to his shop and teach him how to craft suits, it sounded so hard yet strangely attracting. Tailoring, the craft of sewing together pieces of fabric into one another until they take shape to accommodate a mammal, giving them looks, style and comfort. The coats, the pants, the ties… they all looked so sharp, so stylish and… grown-up. But that wasn't the only reason he wanted to go there, there was one more important one, one dominant and governing._

 _The want to be around his father, to share more time with him because there was always something new to learn about life, always another angle to deal with a presented issue or problem. Nevertheless, it was the attention, the care and interest. He always loved receiving attention and when he didn't, grumpiness and irritation would overtake him and get him distant. But that would easily be broken when his mother would get him to lean on her and start pampering him with her love, her affection and gentleness. There was just something special about her sharp claws when they would carefully trail lines around his head and neck, especially his neck. It was indescribably blissful, it was liquefying, it was absolutely essential._

 _Something crashed inside the house and made Nick's breath to stop, while he felt this twisting inside his stomach. His ears tried to catch any other sounds, while his mind generated ideas which consisted of him checking what had just happened. But there was it again, this time the crashes and clanks were followed by yelling of what sounded to be his mother._

 _In a flash, he removed the blankets from himself, the cold instantly entering and trying to dig through his warm pajamas, while he jumped off the bed and onto the planked floor with a creak. In front of him stood his desk which had lost its wooden color due to him having painted on it with all kinds of markers. Papers of words and letters were scattered around its surface with some child-like drawings being present here and there of clothes and bad-representations of mammals._

 _The wallpapers on the walls weren't in bad of a condition tho, they held textures of leaves in green with vertical thick lines in between divisions. He didn't have much more in his room as his parents didn't have much resources to do so, yet there was always food on the table, a fact that he couldn't understand its significance due to his early age._

 _He almost fell flat on his muzzle because of the basketball which rolled towards the drawer in a sluggishly-mocking fashion, while Nick sighed and carefully sneaked towards the old door from where he could still hear his mother arguing. Every step taken was making him wince because the floor was being pretentious in the forms of squeaks. Nonetheless, he got to the door and slowly twisted its knob so he was to be able to peek from the crack as well as hear better what was being said._

 _The tongue clicked and Nick's ears flattened to his skull with fear dripping into his mind that he was to be caught out of bed at such a late hour, not that he was ever severely reprimanded for not listening to his parents but he didn't like chores even one bit, no kit on Earth did, at least that's what he thought. Carefully, he pushed the door and light got him to squint his nocturnal eyes, yet it was at such an angle that it didn't pour into his room or expose him either._

 _"… after going through everything!? You can't do this, John… I don't agree with it!" What he was seeing in front of him, behind the kitchen table, was baffling for his innocent jades. Yea, his parents would argue from time to time but he had never seen his mother in tears like now, as she stood in front of his father with a slumped back and arms hugging her chest. His father's expression was hard to read from such a distance but there was sourness as well, yet he stood tall with confidence, and he was fully dressed with his light-grey coat and pants, his black tie and white shirt._

 _"I explained everything… I'm… sorry…" his father returned. Still, Nick couldn't understand anything from the exchange, yet there was this feeling that something big was going to happen, a feeling he couldn't put a word upon. It looked as his dad was heading somewhere because he was dressed officially, like always, yet his mother was just in her checked pajamas in blue._

 _"I won't let you, John!" she growled and took a defensive stance, while her claws, usually used for affection but now as a weapon, extended and her hackles went rigidly electrified. She was very skinny and half a head shorter than John but that even added to the effect of her ferociousness, which was followed by a loud snap of jaws in front of John's muzzle, which was pointed down but he didn't even flinch, just stood there motionlessly and stared at his mother whose lips were twitching in spasms to her resenting growls. She looked wild, she looked… desperate._

 _"I've… got to…" he said and, after a quick moment, turned around and headed towards the door to which his mother pounced, her claws digging into the back of his coat and ripping lines as she swished around and in front of him in an instant, which made Nick fearful that things would escalate, yet his father stopped and didn't do anything in return, just stood still. "Cath, don—"_

 _"Shut up! S-shut up! You're not d-doing this to us… We can… we can g-go elsewhere… there is n—"_

 _"This is my own weight to bare."_

 _"Share it with me then!" she grit her teeth as she grabbed his lapels, her sharp claws digging in hard while her hardened façade was starting to crumble, her voice betraying its firmness as it broke. His paws reached for hers and for a moment her dark yellow eyes beamed with hope but it died when he removed her paws and skirted around her trembling frame._

 _She instantly got in front of him again and tried to push him back but he just kept pushing forward, his bigger frame and stronger physique overpowering her weakening attempts which started generating whimpers from her as she tried with all her strength to stop Nick's father, her husband, her mate. But then something unexpected happened to Nick and even his father who abruptly stopped when she collided into him and hugged him around his middle, her muzzle finding its way underneath his as she let the anxiety out with twitching lips and tears which fell around her cheeks in a streamy fashion._

 _Her tail was hanging low and she just looked so frail, so vulnerable, so hurt… Nick's own tears began forming on the corner of his inherited jades and he was even thinking of announcing himself but he remained in the shadows, he remained unnoticed, he remained observing. It seemed that the hug was very strong, it was showing his mother's devotion, love and affection but it wasn't being returned, it was being cast out as if it was an annoying itch, as if it was sickness, as if it was unwanted._

 _Until it wasn't._

 _John's tail went around her smaller frame and his paws at last embraced her tightly and lovingly to which she sniffled loudly with a barely-audible chuckle. His claws stroked her ears and that got her to nestle herself further into him, as if she were trying to dig a hole into his neck. Maybe everything was going to be alright after all, maybe there was just a disagreement… maybe…_

 _John whispered something into her ear but even when Nick gave his best to overhear, he failed and it frustrated him but his mother's reaction told him a bit as she squeezed him even harder, while whimpers escaped in strain. "S-stay… s-s-stay…" Her head moved back and she mooned into him through teary yellow when at last she began licking the side of his muzzle with one paw cupping his cheek and the other trailing down his body. Her affection pulled his lips and exposed his teeth, while his demeanor was starting to crumble because his head began slightly to shake._

 _Nick felt a tinge of awkwardness from what he was seeing because he couldn't understand what they were doing very well and it was very… strange. But his contemplations broke when John spoke, "N-no, Cath… n-no…" However, she wasn't stopping and welded her body into his as she kissed him deeply as well as hard, yet the affection was broken harshly by him as he grabbed the side of her shoulders and yanked her away. It visibly wasn't hard for him as he was stronger and even as she tried to get close to him again, she just couldn't and at last stopped with limp arms and a lowered head._

 _Then he removed one of his paws and reached for the red pawkerchief which he usually carried in his front pocket of his elegant coat. It was neat and pristine and he folded it into a triangle, while his wife stood there in frustrated puzzlement. He took a step forward, now being very close to her moist muzzle and gently pushed it up a bit as to get her to expose her neck to him, which she did without any hesitation. The pawkerchief was nestled around her neck and it hugged her creamy fur, while John tied it above the small of her back._

 _Why was he doing that? Why would he do that? John reached for her paw slowly, where the evidence of their union stood firmly. Nick had seen it many times and even if it wasn't anything greatly extravagant, just a silver jewelry with John's name on it, there was this feeling that was carried with it in the form of preciousness and great personal value. It seemed priceless and beautiful, and now, now John had reached for that priceless token of devotion and he removed it from her paw which began shaking hard._

 _That same paw was turned around and he put the treasured piece of love in it after which he slowly closed it and put his paw on the region of her heart, while she shook even worse with strained whimpers and failed attempts of talking. His muzzle collided with her closed paw as he kissed it gently, after which he walked by her towards the door._

 _She stood there and didn't react, just stood and shivered with tears falling off her muzzle and onto the dark-brown floor but all of it crashed down when the door was unlocked. Catherine jumped on her spot and turned around so violently that she managed to overtake her tail. "J-john!" she yelled, apparently not caring anymore if she'd wake up Nick, and ran towards her husband who had now fully opened the door, yet he wasn't stopping._

 _"D-d-don't g-go!" she sobbed through and tried to turn him around as well as hug his back, yet he shrugged her off with pieces of his coat falling onto the floor from the visible last resort of her attempts of stopping him. "J-j-john… J-john!... J-jo…" Instead of going after him into the corridor, her steps became unstable and she lost her balance to which she tried grabbing onto the doorframe but as she failed in grabbing hold of it, her claws scraped the wooden surface and her back collided with the opened door behind her to which she slumped down as her knees gave out. She tried to get up but she just couldn't, thus she put her closed paw in front of her heart and hugged her knees, her cries starting to fill the room with grief and gloom._

 _Nick's mouth was trembling at what had just happened even if he still couldn't understand fully. All he could understand was that something bad had happened and that his father had left, which filled his legs with energy and even if he was fearful of his parents finding out that he had eavesdropped, he just didn't care anymore and pushed open his door hard to which his mother instantly zeroed onto him but he didn't care, he wanted to get to his father, he wanted to know what was going on._

 _"Pa! Wait, pa!" Nick was on full sprint, his small legs pushing him forward towards the exit of his humble home._

 _"N-nicky!" his mother shouted in panic and tried to get up on her wobbly legs while Nick was now just next to her. He could see his father down the corridor, he was right there but why wasn't he turning back? Just then, he felt two paws to go around him and pull him back into the house, the door shutting with a slam and his abruptly-stopped sprint hooking out all the air from his lugs which got him to feel dizzy for a second. The warmth and scent of his mother bathed him from behind and her tail went straight in front of him, which just got him perplexed to the bone._

 _He tried to look up but her muzzle situated itself on top his head and held him firmly, while her trembling resonated all around his small frame. "Ma… what's g-going on?... Why pa leave? Why you cry?" He felt more pressure around himself as her hug deepened but the answer took some time, which was greatly troubling him, it was getting him to conclusions which lacked sense and were extremely startling._

 _"He just… He had to do s-something, s-sweety… he needs to do something… don't w-worry…" she answered through choked sobs but her quivering died down considerably as if she was trying to hide her true feelings. But why would she lie to him? If he had to do something that meant that he would come back. But why did he feel as if he wasn't coming back, like this was the last time he would ever see him…_

 _"When? Where he going?" But to his questions came no answers as if what she had told him was all he needed to know which was filling the tube of dismay slowly but surely._

 _"C'mon, honey… it's late…" she said and moved her paws away from him but grabbed one of his and both stood up slowly. He could now look at her and the sight was just painful to watch but when she turned slightly and noticed him staring with concern, she gave him a subtle and warm smile, which got him to remain quiet and not to further ask questions, while she reached for the old bolts on the door and closed them tightly as well as harshly._

 _Walking towards his dark room with his mother, he could see her great efforts of keeping herself standing as well as walking because her knees were just buckling from the weight of her manifesting sorrow which now even had a scent which could be tasted in the form of bitterness. She slightly closed his door but didn't get it to click and as they neared the bed, which now had disgruntled sheets from his escape of its warm confines, she reached for him and put him on its edge, the motion bringing up the feeling of falling. That was when he felt the chilly sensation as his bed seemed to have been robbed off its previous attributes, which was making him jittery._

 _His mother dusted off his feet and said, "In, in!" to which he huffed in dissatisfaction but did so, nevertheless. Yet the iciness was even worse and he just couldn't hold his opinion to himself._

 _"It's cold, ma!" he complained as he propped himself on his two paws before she was able to put the blankets over him. The complaint got her to stop midway and stare at him in quick shock while her claws tapped the cloth as she mused about. Yea, she had understood what he wanted and after a few more moments, she sighed and headed towards the door but without tucking him in which meant that it was going to happen. What he was seeing from behind her was troubling tho, her tail was brushing the floor, her shoulders were sagged and her gait was very unconfident._

 _She closed the door fully and stood there with one paw for support but when she turned around, her posture got straight and her tail went up, yet she just couldn't fix her gait… Why was she losing her balance? One of her paws went to her head and she slumped forwards with the fist against her knee which still carried the silver treasure. He was going to jump off and help her if she hadn't quickly recomposed herself and jogged to the bed where she stopped and stared with a smile at her kit, her gem, her life._

 _"Ma, are you ok?"_

 _"Just… tired… scoot a bit so I can climb in!" she sang soothingly and he did as she had asked to which his mother carefully sat onto the bed that slightly sunk in from her weight, while bouncing Nick up and down, and she grabbed the blankets which were pulled over the both of them but not before getting close to her kit and pulling him close to her fluffy chest, her paws going around and behind him._

 _The warmth, the smell, the closeness of his mother filled the air underneath the blankets with love, it made them comfortable yet again like before he had gotten out to see what was happening, it even felt better, way better. He sensed something sticky to trail around his head and it didn't take him long to figure out that it was his mother's long tongue. She stopped after a bit and pulled him even closer to her, nestling her head just between his triangular ears which detected a happy sigh on her part._

 _"Nick… I'm sorry for not being… well the best mother… I'm still a kit myself and… it's hard… But whatever happens, I want you to know… no, I need you to know that… I'll love you… because you're the most important thing in my life…" She did something behind him as the cloth shuffled a bit but then her paws returned to him and he felt something solid on one of her fingers, as if it was her ring. She had put it on…. Or were that her claws?_

 _"I love you so much…"_

 _"Love you too, ma!" Nick returned with emotion and a racing heart, while he tried to get even closer to her, which was impossible, but that didn't get him to not try. His troubles: gone; his mind: relaxed; his core: fiery; his heart: fluttering. All it took was her affection to fill the cold room with warmth and tenderness, all it took was her presence to fill the empty void which was starting to spread all around him. But something seemed off, something was very off because even if her words came from the heart, something amidst was missing, something quintessential from what had happened just some minutes ago._

 _She hadn't mentioned his father even once…_

 _Nick stirred out of sleep as glass again shattered outside on the street, thus his pumper went up a notch but when he tried to move, it was as if he was stuck, stuck to something warm and living. He remembered that his mother had fallen asleep with him and it seemed that they were in that same position from before he had dozed off._

 _But something was wrong because he could hear her lightly sniffling while her heart vibrated throughout her body. He gently tugged on her muzzle but she didn't react which meant that she was probably asleep and having a bad dream, yet he wasn't sure at all which of it it was. But instead of trying to wake her up and understanding, he licked her neck in affection and hugged her closer while one of his paws caressed the underside of her lips which managed to get them to stop twitching and her to readjust herself into a better position while her tail moved around his middle and served as another layer to the blankets._

 _That got him to yawn with a smile and even if the distant shouting from outside continued as well as with the evident distress that was plaguing his mother, he managed to calm himself down and hope for the best._

 _After all, optimism was something he was taught to be beneficial and right. It was what his dad had told him when he had borrowed money for his shop, it was what his mother had shown him even when things wouldn't work out. It was something that just felt good even in those moments of grief, moments of consternation and cheerlessness. Moments of pain and blackness._

 _But could it all have been a deception? A deception mighty high, a deception that makes you try, a deception to get you by, a deception in the form of a transparent white lie._

 _Maybe… maybe… But he was too tired to think about it and just snuggled into his mother who had at last stopped shaking with her breaths finally taking a normal and healthy rhythm, a rhythm of calmness._

 _A rhythm of serenity._

 _A rhythm of temporary peace._

* * *

" _Thanks, Nick, it was fun. See you around sometime!_ " Judy shouted from atop the bridge and sped off towards the bus stop with a cloud of dust behind her.

"Yea… See you too…" Nick mumbled quietly, scratching the fur between his ears. _She is one crazy rabbit alright._

He leaned back into his chair and watched the sun go up, enjoying the sight he rarely ever saw, as he never liked getting up early due to the fact that he was a nocturnal mammal and more importantly, he was Nick. He went through his bags, searching for his sunglasses, as his eyes were still a bit sensitive to the light. _I don't remember the last time I woke up this early. And Fluff seemed to have woken up without any alarms present… like she was used to this. Heh, she is one ball of energy alright._

Nick stretched himself and grabbed the radio which was still between his thighs. _She didn't stay for the fun stuff. Her loss. Now… which frequency was that channel…_

" _—ert to vegan! Stop chomping like fil—_ "

"— _is shampoo will change your li_ —"

"— _ere's been a malfunction in Tundra_ —"

"— _est… I won't give up, no I won't give in,_ " It was that song from Gazelle that had recently came out. " _Till I reach the end and then I'll start again…_ " The tune was catchy and for a moment Nick's leg bounced with the rhythm while he shook his head with a subtle smile but then he frowned and changed the channel again…

 _Wishful thinking…_

He played around, finding stations that didn't interest him when at last, at last he got to the one he was searching for. "Aha!" he shouted in excitement.

"— _at but reports show that the substance is still on the market, and it seems to be only increasing in quantity. Stay tuned for an interview with Chief Bogo of Precinct One later today… Moving on to International news. Fabienne, what could you tell us about the situation in the Near West?_ " His ears perked up and eyebrows played around in confusion. What more was happening there?

" _Hey Peter, it seems that the situation's becoming more and more severe with each passing day in the tropical country of Apennine. The explosion in its parliament that happened a month ago, which killed 132 government officials, is taking its toll. Martial law has been implemented as of yesterday. The extremists seem to be composed of ex-soldiers and civilian militia who're using guerilla warfare tactics… and from the reports… target peaceful citizens as well; bombing cities and villages. We received reports from our field reporters on scene that… w-what?_ "

It seemed that the situation there was brewing to extreme, not that he hadn't seen it, it was plainly obvious that a revolution was going to take place, it was just inevitable… but at what price… It sounded more like terrorism… " _Ahmmm, it seems… are you sure?_ " -muffled talking could be heard for some moments- " _… Reports came in, saying that poisonous gas was just used an hour ago…_ " Silence befell the radio for a bit, making Nick hit it several times, as he thought that it had broken down.

" _You heard it here first folks, not only are tensions increasing but chemical warfare is being conducted even after its worldwide prohibition. Fabienne, do you have anything else to share with us?_ "

" _Yes, Peter, we're currently working on finding out who is sponsoring these extremists. They seem to be using old weapons from the Great Conflict but there were reports of equipment that hasn't ever been seen till now. But the reports aren't enough to support the claim, as there isn't enough evidence on the matter as of right now. We're awaiting for a response from EUN (Earth's United Nations) on the matter as it_ —"

" _I'm sorry for interrupting, Fabienne… but it seems that president Raghorn's about to make a statement live. We'll come back to you later._ " Now this was alarming and got Nick's full attention because the president never just made announcements out of the blue. He was a very powerful mammal in the country of Mammalia but that didn't mean that he could do as he pleased because things just didn't work like that. But because of Nick's past, he just knew that nothing good was going to be grasped, the news were going to be grave and sullen.

" _Good morning to everyone. Today, more than a hundred mammals were killed and countless other injured in the country of Apennine by a vast chemical attack, done by those that call themselves 'freedom fighters', yet are nothing more than terrorists and criminals. Most of the casualties are civilians. They were predators and prey; big and small; soldiers and civilians; mothers and fathers; daughters and sons. Each of them didn't deserve such a cruel end, nobody does._ " And here it was, it didn't even surprise him even one bit…

" _This morning, I want to talk with you all about this tragedy, the broader threat of terrorism, and how we can keep our country safe._ "

" _In order to keep our citizens safe, we need to act. We've stood idle for far too long. The more we wait, the bigger this regional issue becomes, and it could spread even to our borders. So we'll take the fight to them and stop this endless bloodshed of innocents. I've allowed our carriers, with the approval of the parliament, to approach the warzone and conduct airstrikes against these so called 'rebels'._ "

" _We've found out through our military intelligence that there are many who support these radicals. Selling illegal firearms, vehicles, chemicals and other weapons of war. We're still not sure which countries and influential mammals are funneling their resources, but we know this. We'll find out and when we do, there will be consequences for those of them. If we find supporters from our country, they 'will' be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, as they are no better than the terrorists themselves. There will be no mercy._ " Some light coughing came about from the speakers.

" _So long as we stay true to our course, I have no doubt Mammalia will prevail. May the victims' souls of today's bloodshed rest in peace._ "

" _There it is folks, it seems that we are entering another war. We'll be back shortly and we'll be taking some of your calls,_ " added the host and then, just like that, the feed was changed to some random music, getting Nick to lean into the chair with a heavy sigh.

"Just great… _pft_ …" he exhaled sharply, feeling exasperated as his mind was trying to tackle the issue so he could find an answer. _This is going to be just great, entering another conflict like the Makalu Civil War… Nothing good ever comes out of this, never… Let's hope that none of those protests ever happen again…_

Ten years ago, north of Mammalia, just over the mountains above the city of Zootopia where a big river flows, a civil war broke out in the country of Makalu, which used to be part of TUSR which after TGMC broke into two separate countries: Uyghur and the current Makalu. The division was essential to enforce control over the superpower which had sought to overtake Pangea under its iron fist but because of the union that created Mammalia and the bright minds of the company B.D-M, the war was stopped and its bloodshed in the end came to an end.

Uyghur was overseen for quite some time by occupational forces until it was deemed unnecessary to do so, while Makalu was made into a puppet state with the victors of the war having a say in its future as well as control over everything within the country. But because of the very visible intervention in the country's politics, decisions and enforced rules, a civil war broke out which ended in the decision, by EUN, to remove all military from its lands and to withdraw slowly away from the country, thus leaving it independent to head however the mammals residing there chose.

During the civil war, mammalians protested against the governing officials' decisions which left a dark mark in the country's history as in many major cities mammals rallied against those choices of occupations and brutalization of the country of Makalu. Most of those protests morphed into riots, supposedly done by provocateurs in search for anarchy and panic.

The news got Nick to remember the protests in Zootopia as he was 19 back then. He was in Savanna Central, more precisely: near the fountain where the old watering hole was. He recollected when the protesters, who had amassed in front of City Hall, demanded an end to the occupation and as no one confronted them, they started rioting and vandalizing everything in their reach and sight. He managed, back then, to run away, get into a nearby residential building and climb to the roof. From there he saw the whole thing, the riot police, which consisted mainly of big mammals: rhinos, hippos, bears, giraffes and so on, started beating the rioters and protesters as well without mercy on end.

The police didn't seem to care if there were small mammals in the crowds as well as innocent and peaceful ones as they just sprayed gas, hit anything they could with their hard batons and trampled those that couldn't move or were too slow to flee. It was a massacre, and he couldn't believe his own eyes at that time. The same thing had happened in all the other cities and after the day was over, the death toll was around 400 mammals. The accidents caused a shift in power and new elections were prompted up which got many government officials who were in power to back off from their seats in surrender.

After the problems in Mammalia were over, the decision by the EUN was made to withdraw the troops that were occupying Makalu and only leave the governing officials, for the time being, who would keep the chipped glass whole. Tensions died down, everything started becoming more peaceful until, well until today, when Mammalia agreed to enter yet another conflict which it shouldn't have poked its nose into.

Nick heard a quiet rumble from his stomach and reached over to the bags adjacent to him, searching for food to fill his empty cavern. He only found blueberries and spoiled-smelling fish. Wanting to eat meat but at the same time not daring to test the limits of his body, he chose the blueberries and grabbed a pawful, which he put into his red pawkerchief and then started popping them one after another into his salivating maw.

While doing that and listening to the calming music, he thought about Judy and the recent news. _She missed it… If only she heard it right here and right now, I could've gotten her to understand. Or probably not, who knows… Why do I care so much?_

 _You know why you do..._

 _No?_

 _Keep telling yourself that._

 _Tell myself what?_

 _That you don't feel her hu—_ His train of thought was broken by the loud static that sprung from the radio, getting his ears to fold down as to protect themselves from the awful high-pitched noise and his paw to almost squeeze the berries which were peacefully laying on the old cloth.

 _"And we are back fellow listeners and watchers. Now let's move on and take some of your calls._ " Ringing could be heard from the other side and after a few seconds someone picked up. " _Hello, you're live on MNN (Mammalia News Network). Please state your name and tell us how you feel about the morning's revelations,_ " said the transmission host whose voice for a moment sounded like an automated message.

From the other end there was yelling that could be heard but Nick couldn't decipher what was being yelled, seemingly the mammal in question was blocking the microphone but that wasn't muffling the yells entirely, unsurprisingly. " _Ey… can you hear me?_ " asked the caller at last.

" _Yes, we can hear you,_ "

" _Good, good. My name's Pronk, and I live in Zootopia with my crazy roommate Bucky._ " He paused for a moment. " _Ay, Bucky, come over here and say hi,_ " he yelled off the mic.

" _… SHUT UP AND LET ME SLEEP,_ " was the only response Nick managed to understand.

" _Okay, let's tune down the yelling, shall we? Now, Pronk, tell us what you think on the matter._ "

" _Alright, sorry. I think that this is a load of crap!_ " he exclaimed, sounding angry.

" _Excuse me, sir, please watch the language, okay? Now, could you tell us why?_ " the host asked politely.

" _Yea, yea. It's just that the same thing's happening like the intervention ten years ago. Oh, and those riots back then… And you're telling me that they don't know who's supporting these bast— I mean… bad mammals. If you look at some videos on the net you can see, the combatants have polar bears! That country is nothing but desert, and you're telling me the locals are polar bears? Even a mole could see that it's the country of Uyghur doing this,_ " Pronk explained with noticeable breakings of his voice in the form of unchecked anger.

" _Yes, there've been reports of some of the combatants being polar bears. That is correct. But to come all the way from Uyghur? The Balkan range is just too big, they just can't go over it. And the airspace is being monitored by the EUN._ "

" _Ha! Over it? They are going through it! What, you think they can't have tunneled through all these years? I've heard that they are paying the Balkanians to create bunkers for some kind of doomsday scenario. Crazy stuff I say…_ " he stopped for a moment, muffled shouting starting again to take its roots around the speakers.

" _EY SHUT UP! I'M TALKING TO THE NEWS,_ " Pronk yelled and it seemed that he had forgotten to block the microphone this time. Nick put the radio near his ear canals, trying to hear what the other mammal was saying.

" _YOU'VE BEEN TALKING FOR FAR TOO LONG, JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!_ "

" _THIS IS IMPORTANT, SO DEAL WITH IT AND SHUT UP._ "

" _NO, YOU SHUT UP!_ "

" _YOU SHUT UP!_ "

" _NO, YOU—_ " the yelling was cut midway and the line went dead.

" _Sorry for that, seemed like things got a little heated up,_ " apologized the host, sounding a bit amused by the silly situation.

Nick guffawed hard, hitting his knees and turned off the radio. _No wonder why they put on mammals, these jewels just make you want more. He-he._ He toned his laughing down and pulled the blanket up. _Now where did I put those sunglasses…_

He found them on the chair's handle and put them on his face, looking like a complete douchebag as his smirk was just too greasy. He wasn't willing to go on today and hustle, as he felt a bit tired and still very sleepy, thus agreement with himself was made to nap for the time being. _Why did I even let her follow me here? Did I really believe she can see and understand… Jeez, what's making me feel this way…_

Such feelings weren't common for him since quite some time and them appearing like this was greatly confusing and even a bit alarming because he just didn't want to think about them as feelings just made him soft, thus vulnerable. And he hated being vulnerable, yet at the same time his curiosity just needed to find the answer to what his heart was telling him in the forms of squeezes and lack of breath. Nevertheless, he forfeited and closed his stained eyes which were being hidden by the polarized sunglasses.

And with that, with that his worries dissipated into dust which was blown away by the soothing wind of time.

 _There were these shapes, they looked… familiar… they looked familiarly daunting. Yes, he knew to whom these shapes belonged to, he could remember the old basement, the suffocating air and the smell of mold. And there came that object which he despised and hated more than anything. That hard and rugged leather around his head, that cold and painful steel which clasped around his muzzle tightly like teeth in flesh, it got him to trash wildly on the floor as he tried to get it off himself but because of the panic he was in, failure was dominant._

 _"If you thought we'd ever trust a fox without a muzzle, you're even dumber than you look!"_

 _He could feel his eyes stinging from the harsh words but he wasn't going to show them anything, he didn't want to show them anything._

 _"Aww, is he gonna cry now…"_

Nick woke up with a sharp gasp and doubled heartrate, while he rapidly looked around, searching for threats around himself but in vain. After realizing that it was just a dream and that he only had napped for a small amount of time, he relaxed and tried to doze off again, trying to shrug the bad memory off. It was after all, just and simply a rough trace of the past but it did carry an amount of significance even if it was very small. It resurfacing into his mind again meant one thing, the bunny had managed to get to him and that was troubling because he still couldn't find the right word for how he felt.

It was irritating.

* * *

It was midday, the day seemed to be very promising, the temperatures being moderate and no dark clouds could be seen either. There was a loudly sleeping fox, still in his makeshift bed. He didn't seem to want to go anywhere today even if he had told somebody he would. The ambience around him was pretty calm, birds could be heard chirping from the nearby forest and the occasional buzzing of different insects as well. It was all good and calm until a very loud bang disturbed the silence from nearby, presumably from down the dirt road that lead to the bridge but that didn't wake Nick up, as he seemed dead asleep.

But there it was again, that loud bang which was this time accompanied by screeching which wobbled Nick's sleep and the serenity was starting to distort. He groaned and readjusted himself on the chair but the conflicting sound just kept on coming and coming as metal bashed against metal and grumbling could be heard from above.

" _Are ya deaf? 'EY… don't play dead fox ya fuckin' loafer…_ " The voice was chillingly familiar, it was giving him this painful feeling right on the spot of his underbelly where he had experienced a hit yesterday but it wasn't enough for him to open his reluctant eyes. " _Oh, ya'll fuckin' get it!_ "

There were these steps and the sounds of angry muttering but then came this weight that got on his legs with a very harsh voice following suit, "WAKE UP DUMBASS!" But it was ineffective because Nick thought that Judy was pranking him for not escorting her to the bus stop when darkness had come. She was in the right tho but because he thought that was the case, he played ignorant.

Not opening his eyes, he started with slurs and mumbles because there was something in his mouth, it felt like steel but very thin. "Judy, wat? Yu've cme fo mre… I kno yu wike tu howd it bu dat's jus not healty…" he managed to complete the sentence with the object between his teeth and tried to push the supposed Judy off of him but to no avail, as the mammal in question wasn't budging.

"DON'T JUDY ME, YA LAZY PIECE A SHIT!" the mammal yelled with his booming voice and just like that there was this push to the side which got Nick to feel as if he were falling which got him to open his eyes at long last and notice that he was heading towards the rocky surface of the river's bank.

Nick fell with a small thud on his muzzle, waking up fully as pain jolted throughout his whole body. He stood up slowly while groaning and noticed a fuming Finnick. "Halwo to yu two…" he yawned with a distorted voice, as the object inside his mouth was still there with saliva trailing down its lines. Realizing that there was still something between his teeth, he reached for it and pulled it out which earned him a great deal of shock as he saw that it was his sunglasses which were looking very sticky.

"Interesting…" he mumbled more to himself than anyone else as he rubbed them into his shirt and put them into his breast pocket while he stood up and sat on the log, facing the fennec after one last yawn. "To what do I own the pleasure, my dear good-mannered friend," he quipped, receiving a scowl from his unamused partner.

"Can smell ya've had yo fair share of pleasure, ya dirty fuckin' fox," boomed the sandy vulpine at Nick with an evil scowl which quickly morphed into a suggestive grin.

"W-what're you talking about?" Nick asked, stuttering slightly as the perplexity of the spoken words froze his brain from thinking.

"Don't play dumb, ass face. It's that rabbit copa, what was 'er name? Hundy, Muddy…"

That made Nick to roll his eyes and smirk. "Her name's Judy, Fin."

"Ya, ya! that's it. _Hah_! I see why ya told me to let 'er follow us. Ya sick fuck. How did ya even get 'er to fuck ya. Can't even understand," the fennec teased, laughing wholeheartedly as he sat next to Nick on the log.

But instead of getting on the joke, Nick slightly got hostile at the words used in his presence because she didn't deserve them, yet when was that a problem for him? "Nothing like that has happened… you little midget," Nick uttered the last part barely audible and darkly.

"WHAT DID YA SAY?" barked the fennec, readying himself to break some bones whilst his yellow teeth showed themselves from below his twitching lips.

"I said that nothing like that happened," Nick repeated a part from the sentence confidently, masking his nervousness, which managed to assure the sandy fox that nothing else was said. He was lucky at that moment because he wasn't in the mood for a fight with the smaller fox, yea he was small but that didn't meant he wasn't dangerous. He was extremely hostile and nasty when provoked, having learned that small detail when he had met him for the first time.

"Then why ya smell like 'er ya idiot. Ya think ya can fool me? Ya think I'm stupid?" the fennec asked.

Nick realized what his friend was talking about and just now, started registering Judy's scent, as his nose had gotten used to it during the night, unknowingly to him. Her scent wasn't like his, it was light and soothing. He liked it but wasn't going to say it in front of Finnick nor anyone else. He sniffed himself loudly and then just shrugged his shoulders in feigned disinterest of further talking about the subject. "Guess I do," Nick added blankly and just stood up as he closed in on his bags, grabbing a bottle of blueberry juice and quickly asking, "Want some, Fin?"

"Nah, if ya got some booze, sure. Nothin' else." The answer surprised Nick and got him to glance at the bridge where Finnick's orange van had been parked very sloppily, its art on the side of its wall being visible to his eyes, art which included a brown tod who was holding a snow vixen in his two paws. They were dressed medieval with the tod having a sword sheathed on his back and an intimidating helm as well as armor, while the vixen had a lot of sparkling jewelry, all of that in contrast with the background behind, which consisted of root-like lightning, bright stars, hard smoke, and blazing fires. It was a good piece of art but the rest of the van was slightly diminishing its magnificence due to the rustiness and state of disrepair.

However, he was driving and he wanted booze? That got Nick to wonder if the fennec's brain was the size of a peanut due to his own height in retrospect but maybe it was that he actually didn't give a crap about anything. Yea, the second one was more prominent. "Ahm, Fin? You didn't forget you came with the van, did you now?" There was some staring between the two foxes and Nick's eyebrows huddled together as his ears became slightly restless in the search for a spoken answer.

Finnick rolled his eyes and opened both his paws. "Ye, so what? Bring it 'ere ya crybaby." A defeated sigh chugged out of Nick's lips and his shoulders made a shrug as he got 2 bottles of beer with his own one of blueberry juice and returned to his spot, passing Finnick his forbidden beverage. Still, something got him to zone out as his mind was nagging at him that he had forgotten something incredibly essential, which managed to at last get him to shake his head.

"Oh, sorry… forgot the cap opener, _heh_ … I'll go g—" but before Nick even tried to stand, he heard a hissing sound and looked at his friend. He had opened the metal cap using his teeth, which made Nick to frown at the sight. "Would you stop doing that! You'll break them someday if you keep on going like this," he berated, scowling at his friend's carelessness.

"Whatch'ya give a shit about," Finnick spat and started chugging from the bottle, making its contents disappear very fast which managed to make Nick smile. Finnick was a small mammal, Nick knew that, yet he could be intimidating if he wanted to and even when he didn't. He could always drink and eat a lot, even more than Nick which amazed the red fox every time. He was a very strange mammal, not in a bad way of course. He was the opposite of what he appeared to be, just like a certain rabbit Nick got to know just yesterday.

Nick put one of his paws on his heart and the other over his head and feigned that he was hurt by Finnick's comment. " _Ahh_ , you _wound_ me! How can we pull off hustles if you look like you've gone through 10 consecutive rounds of boxing? You could make them pity you but then they won't think that you're adorable… which is what we actually need, if you aren't forgetting," the red vulpine jabbed smugly, making Finnick growl because of the demeaning voice that had been used as well as a certain a-word.

The sandy fox managed to cool down visibly, with the help of the booze he downed in a single last gulping session of that said bottle. As he finished, he smirked, which got Nick's grin to fall in anticipation of what was to come as his friend didn't usually act this way if he didn't have something on his filthy tongue. "What 'bout that adorable cuty of yos? Ya treat 'er well? The red rocket fly?" Finnick teased with an evil grin but didn't get a reaction as Nick was just staring at nothing.

Why was he acting like such a douchebag and what was the insane reason that the words were actually getting to him. The fennec spoke again but this time with audible worry in his tone, "Ey bro, I don't mind… just fuckin' around. C'mon don't be a shy little bitch 'n' give me some material," he pressed on and nudged him on the arm as to get him started.

Nick groaned in annoyance, feeling slight discomfort at talking about that very subject even if it usually wouldn't be something that made him as such. "Nothing happened… for the _I don't know what time_ … She just slept close to me. It got too cold during the night, nothing else!" Why was he even expecting for him to stop teasing, why did he even think that he would get away with it… Such opportunities were rare and that made Nick to grumble in slight exasperation.

"I know that's yo witty way to say ya've fucked 'er. Don't ya try to get clever on meh."

Nick didn't know any other way to explain his surprisingly annoying friend that nothing had happened. _Is this how he feels when I do it to him?_ "No, I meant it in the normal context. Nothing happened, _period_ ," he huffed and drank a bit from his sweetness-filled bottle.

"Sure, keep it to yoself then, jackass," was the reply with feigned disappointment. "Say… why'd ya didn't come today, I phoned ya like 10 times. Thought ya were dead in some ditch."

The red tod smiled, finding the real meaning in his friend's words which managed to slightly warm his heart. " _Awww_ , so you were worried about me? How sweet, _little guy_ " –Finnick's mouth opened in anger and he growled- "I didn't know you were so caring deep inside," Nick managed to bring back his smugness and bombarded his aggressor with the power of his ability of annoyance which he had lost due to some still-unknown reason.

" _Ughm_ … No, dip-shit. Came to collect yo wads as ya greedy flea-infested dead-ass wouldn't need it. Tis why I came with the van, I know yo hidin' those fat stacks somewhere."

"Hah, fat stacks… I wish that were true" -Nick adopted a dreamy look- "I was just exhausted. Didn't feel like hustling today. I was just… beat."

"No shit, heard what those rabbits can do. Surprised ya could even stand up," Finnick guffawed wholeheartedly, receiving a very dark look from Nick.

"Laugh it up, _big guy_ " -the red vulpine began smirking- "tomorrow, you're getting back into that suit."

"Fuck ya. I'm doin' this only for the green. If I find a single picture of meh in that suit, I'll bloody kill ya! I swear on me van!" Finnick gripped his now-empty bottle and almost threw it at Nick from anger but managed to stop himself, luckily for the bug-eyed reynard. He got the other full bottle and popped it open with a loud hiss with his conditioned teeth.

His reaction managed to make Nick chuckle in nervousness because he had just managed to go around the drops. Tho the silence got him to think about what he had heard in the morning from the station and about the ongoing events which didn't speak anything good for the future. "Hey, you heard the news?"

"I don't care 'bout news, don't act like ya don't know that."

Nick wasn't surprised at the retort but knew deep down that Finnick cared about what was happening around them, he just never showed it. "Heh, but this is bad. We're entering another conflict like the one 10 years ago. They just sent carriers to bomb the rebels in Apennine. Who knows what they'll do next," Nick explained, turning gloomy because of what he was imagining of possibilities which could turn the world upside down.

"What, ya think they'll send in muscle? That could happen but 'ey, who gives a shit. Let 'em play their games, as long as they don't start playin' 'em here."

"It's not impossible…" Nick retorted, looking at the sandy fox dead serious and feeling a tingle of worry inside. "We have to have a plan if that happens someday, 'kay?"

"Whatch ya wan'me do, shoot the president?"

But it seemed that the sarcastic reply didn't have its desired effect as Nick was seriously thinking about his next words, not wanting to have his word games at that very moment. There was one mammal that came to his mind that could be of great help considering such planning for the future, the issue was that the mammal was missing. "I want you to be on the lookout for Uren. If you see or find her, I want you to tell me, got it?"

The fennec instantly dropped the bottle and its contents splashed against his sleeveless shirt to which he yelled in anger but managed to save the rest of his bitter beverage. "UREN? Ya nuts?! Last time I saw 'er, she tried to beat me with 'er stunstick 'n' stab me with 'er damn tusks! Remember 'er yellin' somethin' 'bout agent sheep or I dunno. She's gone haywire for all I know, 'n' lives off the grid. Don't even know where she be hidin'."

Yea, Nick knew about that because that was the last time anyone had actually seen her as she had just vanished from existence. Finnick being terrified from somebody was something extremely rare because the little guy was just a pure ball of spite, especially when someone tried to do him wrong. But Nick needed to hope that she was still alive and somewhere safe, hiding like she usually did. "I get it, she's a bit wacky but just do it for me, please? You don't need to interact with her, just tell me if you see her. Would you do that, Finnick?"

The full use of the small fox's name made his visible violence to tune down a lot as the words sank inside his head and after some moments of murmuring, he gave Nick his answer, "Just a bit… Fine… Uren… unbelievable." Finnick crossed his arms and became downcast as he continued mumbling something to himself angrily, his meaty ears having fallen against his head.

Silence prevailed and Nick closed his eyes when a wave of wind brushed against his fur gently but the peace was broken when something like a growl came from near him, accompanied by the hasty words of his friend, "Tell me ya have some food in those dirty bags of yos." He did have something to offer but knew that Finnick would never agree to it, not after he had left him down there alone. It was a memory that got him to smirk as that was a sight with a probability of being seen again being zero to none.

"Got blueberries, but nothing else. Gotta restock when I get to town," Nick answered which made the fennec frown and spit.

"Ya 'n' yo fuckin' blueberries. How can ya even eat those buggers." Nick considered going there to take some food for his buddy, but torturing him after all his mockery about Judy was too satisfying for his eyes and ears to do so. He could see him from the corner of his eyes eyeing the bags where the blueberries were and figured that it was just a matter of time before he surrendered and accepted the gifts that the Gods had provided to this Earth in the form of a rounded blue and sweet nectar. But then there was flapping of wings with cooing accompanying it from up the bridge's stone railing which got him to look up and see a small group of pigeons, two of which were biting each other in a very silly-looking fight for domination.

"'Ey, fat ass," Finnick muttered quietly which came as a surprise to Nick who moved his gaze down to meet the fennec's fiery-brown eyes which spoke mischievousness.

"What is it, big guy?" was the reply that served as a returned courtesy.

"Ya see 'em there? Imma catch one," declared the fennec with curled lips which exposed all his teeth and the predatory fire burned even harder within his small eyes. When Nick glanced again at the small group and noticed the circus which those same two were continuing, with Finnick saying that he was going primal, laughter squeezed his stomach and containment was just not an option as he let it all out in a burst. "Quiet, ya fuckin' dickhead!" Finnick tried to suppress his yell as best as he could.

"You want me to believe, _aha_!... that you can catch a wild animal… _bare-pawed_? _Phah_! Last time I gave you to cook my meal, you burned it, _pftat_ …" Nick guffawed, almost falling of the log.

That got the fennec extremely agitated to which he groaned quietly as he headed up the slope and towards his target. " _I'll show ya what a real fox can do, stupid bitch o—_ " he mumbled quietly as he was climbing the slope and Nick made a mocking salute as he followed his friend with his eyes, while trying to keep a straight-face. The small fox became obscured behind the stone railing and Nick moved his gaze at the pigeons which at last had stopped the ludicrous fight and one of them was now courting the supposable female. So that was what the fight was about…

The idea of his small buddy stalking those birds got Nick to laugh again and even get all the heads of the birds to aim at him but then came that rocky _krak_ sound to which the birds instantly turned around. " _FUCK,_ " yelled Finnick from atop and all of the birds went flying to which Nick knew that it was game over but what he saw shocked him to the last nerve, the sandy fox had jumped over the bridge and even caught one of the in-flight pigeons, but the thing was, he wasn't flying like them but falling down, like a bag of rocks, quickly.

He fell on his backside and rolled on the uneven rocky ground to which Nick actually fell off the log and grabbed his belly from pain because, yet again, he had witnessed something mind-boggling from his friend. The sandy fox groaned in pain, as he had fallen on his back while holding the still-alive pigeon in his two paws. "Gotcha ya little flyin' ninja," he told the pigeon to which he received a bite on the paw but it didn't visibly phase him, as his skin was thick. He got up and headed towards the red vulpine who was rolling around in his own happy tears.

" _He-hey_ , those were some killer instincts, _ts-ts_ … Fin! I think you caught some rocks after you fell as well, _pfaha_ ," quipped Nick, getting the sandy fox to lose his cool.

"SHUT UP RETARD… caught it, didn't I? Do somethin' in yo pathetic life 'n' start the fire," commanded the fennec through grit teeth while the pigeon tried to wrestle its way to freedom but in vain.

"What, you going burn it alive? You sick in the head or something?" asked Nick, sounding genuinely concerned.

"No, don't have those likin's as ya do. I'll keep it fresh till I can cook 'em."

The answer managed to relax Nick, so he sat up and went to the barrel as to start the fire. He put some firewood inside it, not plastic trash as it would soak into the meat and make it toxic, not that it would be anything bad for Finnick. He poured some gasoline inside and blazed it very quickly. There was a cooking grid near the barrel which he used when he had to cook his own food when outside, thus he put it on top of the burning barrel but didn't bother to scrub the charcoal that had accumulated because it was Finnick's snack and if he wanted to, he could do it himself.

Getting back to his sitting spot on the log, he motioned to Finnick that the grill was ready. The pigeon had stopped squirming and now just stood quietly in Finnick's paws as if it had accepted its forced fate, while Finnick leaned towards the soon to be eaten snack and asked, "Any last words, punk?" To which he received a very hard bite on the nose which got him to hiss in pain, as the bird did bite him pretty hard. "Love ya too, Flappy," he returned with an angry grin and snapped its neck without hesitation.

" _Whoaw_ , whoaw! Didn't know you were a cold-blooded killer... I don't think it's safe to be around you anymore" -the fennec growled in irritation but didn't even turn to face Nick- "who knows when you decide to snap my neck," Nick taunted his friend while he was readying his snack for the fire by removing its feathers.

"Won't be able to break yo neck. But yo fingers, I will," the smaller fox retorted evilly while opening the pigeon to remove its insides. After he was done, he left the bird to cook and went to sit near Nick. And Nick being Nick, flinched when Finnick sat near him. "If ya keep this freak show, I'll break all yo fingers like a snikers bar, ya fucker!" The tension in the air increased and that got Nick to gulp nervously while his eyes moved about because his mind had plenty of ideas of a comeback but his jaw was aching because of the force he was putting upon it due to dread of his unstable friend.

Because quietness again came about, Nick's thoughts again were aimed at a certain grey mammal who seemed to have taken a portion of his mind without his consent. While the fun with Finnick strayed his thoughts away from her, it seemed that it didn't matter as they would just come back until the matter was figured and closed, if closure was even possible…

"Yo, Nick. What's going on with ya today, ya don't seem yoself," the fennec probed carefully, audibly trying to control his booming voice as it always sounded as if he were yelling.

"It's… It's the rabbit…"

" _Uhh_ … ya fucked 'er, so what?" the fennec asked, not understanding. But the hostile glare he received managed to make him visibly do. "Okay, 'kay! Lay off… So what 'bout 'er?"

"I just feel bad about her. She seems to be so motivated. Yet I know that she'll be brought down. It's just how the world works… I've been on that path" -Nick gazed into the distance dreamily and finally turned to face the fennec seriously - "so have you." But the sandy fox's surprise turned into a very hard scowl.

"Are ya stupid?" asked the fennec, sounding genuinely angrily-surprised while his eyes narrowed slowly onto Nick's widely-opened ones.

"W-w-wh-"

Finnick snarled and made a fist. "No, shut the fuck up. Ya tellin' me ya don't know when ya just told me?" -the fennec glanced away for a second- " havin' gone through what she's 'bout to go through… ya know... it's not like I don't see it too... just don't give a fuck... Nobody helped me back then. 'N' why do ya even give a fuck? Ya want some exotic cunty, that it? Wanna grease the reel? There're easier ways ya dumb fuck."

Nick groaned as his brain tried to figure out why his friend had adopted such an idea and why was he forcing him to talk about it. "Why you think always about fucking, Fin? And no. Nothing like that."

The fennec threw his paws in the air, creating a small wind wave that bashed itself against Nick's fur. "Then it's easy! Ya becomin' a pussy-ass bitch. An emotional _little foxy_ that wanna help the poor _wittle_ rabbit. Nothin' good'll come from that, don't bother… But ya get it? Damn ya fuckin' dumb as a damn rock," Finnick sassed the tod and headed to look at his snack because there was the possibility of it turning into a pile of flavourless ashes.

Nick on the other paw was frustrated from the words that were carried with harshness and realism. He actually understood what his friend had told him. No, he didn't tell him anything new actually, Nick very well knew all of it and it was just under his nose all along, yet he couldn't see it because he wasn't thinking outside the box due to his ignorance. But why had he developed such a feeling towards her and what was it, what was so special about her was the question. He avoided attaching himself to mammals, not wanting to get betrayed in the short or long run, as well as because of his past choices and mistakes which haunted him hard.

He did trust Finnick but the sandy fox never needed any help because he could deal with problems himself, being older and more experienced than the red fox. His past wasn't a shiny and beautiful one as well but the sandy fox had managed to cope up and survive and even to become Nick's friend, yet Nick never felt that feeling, the feeling which he had right now for Judy but never for Finnick, probably because the smaller fox had already gone through all the shit the world had to offer and was already awake. While Judy was just now stepping into the water which was just brushing her ankles, meaning that the more she moved forward, the deeper it would get and if she didn't find a way to stay afloat, she would drown.

It was her resolve, her determination, her honesty, her personality which had made an impression on him. She didn't really seem entirely innocent and he knew that she had probably met with some of life's shit but that was just the tip of the iceberg. She wouldn't have wanted to be a cop if she knew about the big picture or maybe she would've… Maybe she was trying to fix the broken and corrupted? Only time would tell and he hoped that she wouldn't end like most…

So Nick got to a conclusion. It was his past that was bringing him to think about this, it was the bunny's unbiased behavior, her moxie and seemingly overflowing optimism. The memory, the thoughts, the feeling…

It was undeniably and finally…

 _Compassion_ …

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	5. Instincts

**Chapter Five**

 **Instincts**

 _As the sun's glow pierced the night, chasing away the endless darkness, it illuminated the seemingly infinite fields, fields which were filled with wheat that looked like gold under the sharp and welcoming light. The golden ball of warmth started poking its head over the horizon, extending its reach to other places that were still in the grasp of the cold and reigning darkness. The wheat was swooshing around from the gentle breeze which moved through it, touching the ready to be harvested grain and its leaves, getting them to bend from the force and thus, creating a soothing ambience that tickled the ear in a very pleasant way._

 _But in the middle of those fields, there was something or rather someone that was out of place, someone who was disrupting the landscape's serenity. It was a grey-silver bunny, seemingly sound asleep in the middle of the endless sea of gold. She looked calm and beautiful as the sun's smile reflected on her damp grey and silver fur, which moved around from the soothing breeze just like the endless amount of harvest did._

 _Yet, peace couldn't last forever, as the ball of fluff stirred and started to wake up by stretching her limbs and emitting an adorable yawn. She slowly opened her eyes, exposing her amethyst gems to the world and tried to focus on her surroundings as to see where she was. Not satisfied, as she could only see the stems of the yet unknown to her plants, she slowly put her warm paws on the ground, pushed herself to a sitting position and straightened up her long black-tipped ears which only detected the light sound of wind and pretty much nothing else._

 _But now, now she could see the unending fields which were stretching for kilometers in every direction, no mountains, no forests or cities. Nothing. That made her smile as the sight was stunning but it wasn't meant to last and her smile turned to a confused frown because she didn't know where she was or what she was doing there. Her mind was racing at the speed of light, trying to remember anything of how she got to where she was but nothing was coming up, which baffled her immensely and made her slightly afraid. She knew that something had to be done and that it was time for her to move her furry butt if she wanted to find answers to her questions._

 _Standing up and looking at the sun with a paw over her eyes so she could see better as well as pinpoint her directions, she made her decision and headed east, from where the sun was peeking, with a medium walking pace and a confident gait. The light wind came back, but this time, there was a barrier that it needed to go around, that being the walking bunny. It moved over the fur of her shoulders, around the fur of her chest and between the fur of her inner thighs, which made her stop abruptly and freeze, as she just now realized that she was fully naked._

 _With a very loud squeak she jumped to the ground, trying to hide herself from the world, as she was incredibly embarrassed and terrified to be seen in such a state. She put her ears in front of her face, thinking that they would help shield her better, and thus laid curled into a ball for quite some time, shivering and not being able to think clearly from the surge of adrenaline and bashfulness that had hit her mind._

 _After she got herself in control, she managed to at last open her eyes and move her ears away from view. With labored breathing, she stood up slowly and looked around, still thinking that someone could see her in her current compromising appearance. But as she saw that there was no one but her, she resumed moving towards her previous destination, but this time, with drooped ears and twitching nose whilst covering her private parts to the best of her abilities. At least it somehow felt natural, even if her whole body was uncomfortably flushed._

 _She kept on walking and with every passing minute, her frustration was reducing her shyness as fear was starting to take over and dominate her body and mind. Not recognizing an end to the seemingly endless amount fields that looked like golden liquid under the light, she started running. But as dismay continued to grip her harder, she began sprinting with all her might, not trying to cover herself, as she didn't care if anyone saw her anymore. Just as she was about to crumble from her massive expense of energy, she stepped into a hole and fell flat on her face with a painful groan, while dirt found its way in between her lips and gums._

 _After getting over the shock, she slowly got up and sat on the ground, hugging her knees and slightly quivering. But just as she was about the lose hope, her right ear shot up, registering something like a gunshot from not so far away. She bolted up straight with a twitching nose and, without even hesitating, ran towards the direction that the sound seemed to have originated from. She could see very dark clouds starting to form in the light-blue sky which made her increase her pace from the fear of getting caught up in a storm without any protection but her bare butt._

 _While running, she heard something again, it sounded like yelling but muffled and distant that came from another direction, which got her to stop with her feet grinding against the dry soil and as she managed to stop herself, she turned around. What she saw made her excited and happy, it was a town. She headed towards it, forgetting her undressed state as excitement overwhelmed her now-dulled senses. The town seemed old but in good of a condition, most of its buildings being made from wood or stone. It did resemble her hometown slightly in a sort of way._

 _Getting to the paved street which served as a border for the town's beginning behind which there were several grain silos and a warehouse, she looked around, searching for a living being but as she didn't spot anyone, she started feeling that dread inside of her again. "Is anyone HERE?!" she yelled desperately on top of her lungs, wanting to see another mammal very badly but nothing came back but the distant rumbling with the now-haunting wind, and she just kept walking down the street, hugging herself because of the decreasing temperatures and upcoming storm._

 _A tall wooden fence replaced the end of the warehouse which's paint was beginning to fall off its wooden surface, yet there were several readable and degrading posters_ that caught her over-hyped attention: _'They Are To BLAME', 'Savage BEASTS' but it was just text with a plain background and nothing more which just didn't tell her much to contemplate upon._

 _"HELLO?!" she yelled yet again before rounding a corner and heading deeper into the visibly abandoned town. As fear's tentacles began creeping up her spine, she started feeling hopeless and her paws rubbed her forearms, as she didn't know why she was there or how she could get out. But before she could depress herself further, she heard a very loud scream from up ahead._

 _Running towards the sound with renewed energy, she stopped just before the end the wooden house, from where the scream had come from, behind which was a dark alley without an exit. She grabbed her erect ears, folding them, and peeked around as to see who had made that signal for help. She couldn't see anything as the darkness was just too thick, the dark clouds now having engulfed the whole sky, thus blocking the sun's warmth and creating a very gloomy atmosphere. Just as she was about to head in and investigate blindly, the town's lights sparked from the streets, removing the darkness that was ever present in the dead-end alley._

 _She could now see that there was an average-sized dumpster and near it was what looked like to be 2 mammal silhouettes. From her observations, the one that was closer seemed to be a rabbit, and the other was a fox, but something was definitely wrong. The light was going through those silhouettes and wasn't being stopped by them. They didn't have their own casting shadows yet were engulfed in them. What was even stranger was that the shadowy fox was cowering in the corner, shivering and sobbing, while the silhouette of the bunny seemed to be holding some blunt object in its paws._

 _She wanted to go and announce herself but decided against it, wanting to see what would happen next and even didn't need to wait long, as the silhouette of the bunny walked towards the cowering fox and fiercely hit it with the blunt object over the head, making the vulpine to emit a loud yelp which pierced the grey doe's heart like a venomous spear._

 _"I'll teach you to know your place, PELT," spat the feminine voice at the sobbing fox, pulling the blunt weapon over her head and readying herself to strike again._

 _The grey doe was speechless and her brain was giving off signals to not interfere, but the rational part of her which was… well her, couldn't stay idle and watch… she needed, no… she wanted to intervene. Scowling at her slow decisiveness, she ran towards the two shadowy figures and yelled, "STOP!" which made the silhouette of the bunny to halt what she was doing and turn to face the grey doe._

 _"What? Can't you see I'm in the middle of something? What are you even doing here? Aren't you supposed to be gathering carrots or something," said the ghostly doe mockingly._

 _"No, I'm not. And what do you think you're doing? Why are you beating up that mammal!" the grey doe demanded furiously, not liking what she had seen even one bit._

 _"That piece of TRASH? MAMMAL?" the shadowy doe screamed with malice and spat on the ground. "Don't make me laugh, it's only a disgusting animal which doesn't even deserve to live!"_

 _The answer chilled the grey doe's blood because what she was hearing was pure hatred but she wanted to try and reason with her, make her change her mind. "Every mammal and animal has the right to live! That mammal is no different than you and me!" shouted the grey doe strongly and with hope that her words would bring back sense into the hateful and psychotic shadowy bunny._

 _"THE SAME?" the shadowy doe shrilled and started giggling in a very revulsive way, and then, then her giggling turned into disturbing laughter which sounded awfully disgusting to the grey doe. She felt at that moment something wet and cold hit her nose, which made her look up. The swarm of black clouds was now just over her, and it looked like it was going to rain hard, and then, then she heard the closing-in sound of thunder, and apparently and familiarly-unrecognizably, the sound of something else._

 _The sky cracked under the force of electricity and stroke the land with several explosions that wobbled the air around with vibrations, vibrations that got the grey doe to jump in unwanted surprise and ears to fold behind her, trying to shield themselves from the extremely loud noise._

"Ey, you there?!" _someone shouted from afar which she registered faintly from behind and turned around. But there was nothing behind her at all, just those same wooden houses and zig-zagging lines of pure white roots in the black-clouded sky which were accompanied by a few more fainter and distant bangs that roared like beasts of biblical proportions._

 _She turned her attention back to the two shadowy mammals but what she saw made her heart skip a beat. The silhouette of the bunny seemed to be holding not the blunt weapon from before but what seemed like to be a firearm. "STOP, what are you DOING?!" yelled the panicked doe instantly, seeing that things were escalating way too fast and wanting to stop whatever madness this appeared to be._

 _"I'm going to kill him, what else?" the ghostly doe answered blankly, like it was nothing special._

 _"WHY? What did he do?!" yelled the grey bunny desperately, not understanding her reasoning and feeling the cold all around her naked body to be draining her patience._

 _"What did he do? He's a DISGUSTING PREDATOR!" the shadowy doe spat with a malicious and hateful voice._

 _"What gives you the RIGHT!?" the grey doe yelled, sounding desperate, as she was seeing that her arguments and attempts at persuasion were failing miserably and that the shadowy doe was visibly psychotic and highly unreasonable. But the crazy doe didn't instantly retort like before, no, her firearm was aimed down at last and her head was tilted to the side as if she were contemplating upon what had just been said. Had she managed to get her see, was success met at the last moment… was this it?_

 _"I have all the right," the shadowy doe answered finally with confidence, looking at the grey bunny straight in her amethyst eyes, and with an evil grin, which made the grey doe's heart to get entangled in iron fear, while her nose started thinking on its own as she felt helpless and desperate just like when she was in the sea of gold._

 _The shadowy bunny then turned her head slightly. "Do you think that I'm going to let you compare me to this predator, this FILTH… this… DEGENERATE?!" she yelled, the hysteria in her voice increasing with every word. "After I'm done with him, you're next! Dirty PREDOPHILE!"_

 _The rain began pouring erratically and hard, drenching the grey doe in an uncomfortably cold liquid blanket which got her to begin shivering involuntarily. But that wasn't phasing her, she didn't feel it because of the gripping anxiety, adrenaline and dread that had overtaken her, knowing that she was going to witness murder in front of her if she didn't do anything about it. The cowering fox hadn't moved from the corner since her appearance, and he was only making whimpering sounds, which sounded heartbreaking for the grey bunny, thus the fear was being replaced slowly with absolutely pure and burning anger…_

 _Righteousness… Integrity… Bravery…_

 _Again, lightning hit the ground many times nearby, resonating its loud and booming wrath while shaking the air around and scorching the land around its sight. The explosions were like bombs, bombs that were making the windows of flats shake violently as well as the earth itself while getting it to rumble underneath as if a sleeping giant was awakening from his long slumber with desperate groans of hunger._

"You there?" _came this distant and echoing shout from behind her which was nagging at her to just turn around and see that mammal, that voice in disguise. But her focus was too preoccupied with what was happening in front, a dire situation in the need of mending, in the need of fixing, a situation in need of intervention._

 _Thinking fast, she looked around for some kind of weapon, for any kind of physically-ready salvation. Luckily for her, she surprisingly spotted a pistol near the dumpster, which filled her with hope, thus she began slowly creeping towards it, being careful not to attract the shadowy doe's attention who was chillingly fixated upon the cowering fox._

 _"Any last words, you fucking chomper?!" she asked the whimpering fox but didn't receive a coherent response, only more high-pitched whimpers. "Ahhh… probably don't even know how to speak, waste of life!" she spat and aimed the gun towards the vulpine's head. The grey bunny was now just before the gun, it was within reach and all she had to do was duck, which was achieved in a flash and the hard and cold weapon of death was now in her shaky paws that were poisoned with reluctance to proceed._

 _She knew how such things worked, it wasn't her first time using one as her past had inquired for her to be ready for anything as for the future, which was now bearing fruits as well as insane tests. Her eyes glanced at the hateful shadow and that was when her heart just squeezed hard because what she feared would happen was just moments away from being finished. She quickly removed the safety and fed the hungry mouth another round, the previous one thus being sent flying out and onto the slippery ground without a sound as everything all around was rumbling and splashing, the winds above the buildings' roofs being echoes of ghosts and lost souls._

 _"STOP, or I'll shoot!" yelled the grey doe as she aimed at the dark doe whose ear sprung towards her direction. The shivering horror from not wanting to use the weapon in her paws was constricting her will to act, it was devouring it slowly but surely, while the rain was starting to take a toll on her core as the stifling of her warmth was now nerve-numbing. She had never taken a life before nor did she even want to ever have to. The uncertainty about pulling the trigger was great because she just wanted the silhouette to surrender without any need of bloodshed._

 _But it seemed that the shadowy doe had different thoughts on the matter and even started laughing uglily. "You… you think you have the guts to shoot-ME? HAH! YOU!... Don't kid yourself, you cowardly RABBIT! The only courage you'll ever have is to pull out the carrots from the fields…" she snapped with such malice that the words pierced the grey doe like daggers, making her shiver insanely and tears to start forming in her eyes because of the inability to hold up the emotional pressure from the development of the dangerous situation, especially the realization that she had to act in such a brutal and savage way._

 _"Now… if you'll excuse me, I've got to take out the trash. You'll just have to wait your turn," the ghostly doe chirped and turned her head around in a flash, while the grey doe was horrified without end, she didn't want to shoot and at the same time she knew she had to stop the dark figure from murdering the innocent vulpine. If she let the insane bunny commit murder, there would be blood on her paws as well, as her choice of not doing anything, when possible to do otherwise, would be just like pulling the trigger herself._

 _Her inner turmoil was raging like an inferno, the trigger in her paws felt stiff like the heaviest stone while being incredibly slippery and hard to put a grip to. She began pulling the spring inwards with now-heavily trembling paws, the anxiety inside of her being on such a notch that she had stopped breathing, her body's temperature having had increased surprisingly even when the cold rain was piercing her to the bone with an icy chill. She didn't want to do it, feeling sick just at the thought of murder, yet she had to, or she wouldn't be able to forgive herself otherwise._

 _"Night, night pelt!" the shadowy doe quipped and started pulling the deadly trigger with an unsettling smile. There was no time for thinking anymore, there was no time for caution, it was now or never, and just like that, when another root of light spread the sky open, the grey doe gulped the heavy and coarse lump in her throat and pressed hard with grit teeth which scrunched almost to their broking point. The sound that exited the beast's nostril tried to dominate the air around it but it was greatly muffled by an even greater beast behind the grey doe, who felt this crackling vibrate inside her ears and a force to push her forward and onto her elbows and knees._

 _It was so hard and deafening that she almost lost all her awareness while her reflexes saved her from falling on her chin, yet she still held onto the gun with all her strength, but there was no drive to open her closed eyes which were filling with tears due to the thoughts of her having failed the vulpine who needed her help, her protection. The scent of freshly-burnt gunpowder was findings it way into her nose, tickling it in a repulsing way, while depression sunk further into her cells as she just believed that failure was met, due to her having been knocked down by the force of nature._

 _She accepted her fate and waited for the next bullet, which was promised to her by the hateful shadow, yet nothing else was happening but the distant thunder and quickly-tapping rain that had molded her fur into her trembling frame. That was when some of her hearing began coming back and the distorted sounds of what seemed to be… gurgling? Or chocking? Those disturbing notes of hurt got her to slowly open her glossy amethysts and the sight succeeded to relieve a great deal of weight, while devastating another part of her and putting up a weight of another kind._

 _The silhouette of the bunny was now on the rough and moist ground, covered in blood and getting the grey doe to drop the gun to the pavement with a clattering sound. She strainingly got up her knees which were shaking as well as trying to buckle and crept towards the seemingly dying bunny, whose darkness was now smeared with the vibrant color of red. One knee was taken close to the extinguishing body and her eyes tried to find a way of saving the spiteful bunny. But it seemed that she had hit her jugular and a lot of blood was already as well as being lost at that very moment, making her realize that the shadowy doe wasn't going to make it._

 _The grey doe clenched her fists in anger as fresh tears fell off her cheeks, hating that she had to do what she had done and asking herself why there hadn't been some other way, another variant which excluded violence and pain. Just as she was to stand up due to the repulsion of herself and not wanting to stay close to the mammal who was going to die because of her, she heard that the dying doe was trying to say something to her personally which was of great surprise. Maybe it involved a last curse or words filled with the plea to help?_

 _Getting close to her bloodied mouth as to hear her faint whispers, she waited for her next words in grave anticipation and choked breath. "Y-y-o-u-u… n-n-n-e-eed m-m-me..." the dying doe whispered and exhaled her last breath which made the grey doe confused, thus she moved her ears away from the apparently now-deceased bunny and looked at her eyes that were widely opened, looking at nothing in particular anymore and just staring at the infinite abyss. They weren't obscured by shadows like before, she could see that they were bloodshot and looked like… They looked like… like purple? Just like her own!_

 _The realization hit her and she jumped away, distancing herself from the dead bunny who was now laying in her own puddle of blood. The shadows that were all around her body were now leaving her and showing her true self. The bunny was naked just like the grey doe, she had the same fur pattern and color, which was now mixed with bright red. The grey doe didn't know what was happening. She wanted to know who that was, why did she look like her, but more importantly, she wanted to get out of there. Hearing another whimper from the corner, she remembered that it was the fox she had saved, having forgotten about the vulpine entirely due to the recently transpired events._

 _She rushed towards the whimpering mess and just seeing his current state made her heart to drop, thus she tried to get his reluctant attention. "H-hey, it's alright. I'm not going to hurt you, o-okay?" she tried to reassure him in a semi-whisper tone and moved closer to the whimpering predator. His curled figure was enveloped in darkness just like the one of the now-deceased bunny but it somewhat looked familiar to her, yet couldn't be recognized in terms of vixen or tod, altho she had heard the doe to refer to the predator as him. She slowly reached for his paw and touched it lightly which immediately got a reaction from him and made her jump back from surprise. She saw his eyes, they were bright red with vertical slits, looking feral and wild._

 _His black muzzle opened with growls fleeing out as he got on all fours and began inching towards her to which she began backing up slowly and getting ready to run for her life, but before she could do that, the feral predator pounced and managed to grab her now-in-motion legs. They were pulled back very harshly which was as if someone had made her stumble, and she fell on her chest and arms. But the motion continued dragging her backwards, thus grinding her chin on the rough pavement with sharp stinging. She tried to pull away and get out of its grasp but she was yanked harshly, her back hitting the wet ground so hard that she lost all her lung's fill._

 _Then came this hot breath all over her face which carried very deep growls and rumbles as well as a familiar scent of power and fox. That didn't falter her yet and when her eyes opened fully, she tried hitting the predator with her powerful legs but she was rolled around with a relentless grasp on her sides which earned her some deep cuts from the predator's claws on her shoulders. Pressure became known on the back of her head while the bigger body trapped hers in a very compromising and humiliating position. She squirmed and trashed but the more she kept it up, the more the pressure on her head became with the claws digging into her skin and parts of her ears which was just awful, it was excruciating._

 _She stopped, accepting a momentary defeat as there was no other visible way at that very moment, thus preparing herself mentally if her life would cease to exist at that very a moment, a task deemed very impossible to achieve due to her hard drive to live, to survive from this primal mammal who she had saved and was now trying to hurt her, to kill her… to eat her as if she was just a… just an ordinary sandwich…_

 _His hot breath again came close to her head and she heard him sniffing deeply while saliva dropped from his maw and onto her fur, which got her to start to sob and shiver madly from instinct because this spoke volumes of the fox's intent, of its need. Her weaker paws tried to push her up, to move her aside but the unwanted warmth close to her neck was unbearably-deflating those actions as she felt trapped in chains…_

 _Helpless._

 _She waited for that dreadful moment when she would feel the searing pain of teeth biting into her sensitive flesh and the smell of her own blood with sensations of sizzling hurt bouncing all around her chilling body. The pull of meat and nerves which would pierce her brain with signals of burning anguish, the feeling of the destruction of her own body which she had worked on so much time, so many years… The stabbing of sharp bone against her own which would crack and snap under the pressure of the fox's jaws which were created by nature to especially kill mammals like her… Prey…_

 _But it never came, nothing happened and nothing was happening which confused her and made her open her glistering eyes, slowly. She didn't see the cold pavement or old buildings, she didn't even see, hear or feel the fox that was going to end her existence just moments ago. Calming herself from the adrenaline that was scourging through her every vein, she looked around frantically and saw that she was in the same golden ponds she was at after she woke up. But the fields didn't have the same color as they did before, they looked dry, they looked… dead… they looked bland. There weren't any rays bathing the earth in their warmth, only hard rain, dark clouds, brutal wind and loud and blinding thunder. She felt cold, lost, scared and completely crushed by confusion._

"EY, BUNNY!"

 _She grabbed that same voice from the distance, followed by cracking thunder strikes that blinded her with their intensity and deafened her hearing because of their strength which in turn got her fur stand up to an end. Yet, the voice gave her hope and she started running towards it but while doing so, she began detecting an odor, something piercingly foul which made her cough and eyes to water._

 _There was this… hill. It looked rugged with its pointy edges from the rocks embedded into the dirt but the voice had come from its top, thus she began climbing the slope while suppressing the urge to vomit while she pressed on as the wind that blew against her carried that odor of repulsion, that odor of sickness. She hoped to find the mammal and thus the answers, which could be in the form of salvation, would be acquired and get her out of the mess of confusion she was forced to endure through._

 _The hill's grass was dead and its stems were rough; the pebbles on the uneven surface were sharp and extremely painful for her soles which were throbbing in pain; the mud was everywhere: it was sliding down the hill, it was carried in the hard wind, it was on her fur and face. Every step she had to take was harder than the last one because the earthy lava was getting her stuck, the wind was blowing her backwards and obscuring her vision because of the animus grits it carried, which were getting her to close and shield her eyes constantly from nature's relentless onslaught._

 _The thunder was deafening, the shouts were getting louder, the wind harsher, the rain colder, her body less responsive, the odor was invading her nostrils viciously, thus making her nauseous but she needed to press on, she had to continue, she had to succeed._

 _The yells were now more clear, the thunder even louder, so loud that the doe thought that her eardrums would rupture at any given moment._

"OPEN UP, BUNNY… HEY, SHU—"

"YOU SHUT UP!" _boomed the voice which she could hear clearly coming from behind the hill's top, even if the ringing was overwhelming her pulsing ears._

 _She was so close, needing just several more steps and she would see who that was… just a few more… But something unexpectedly happened, she lost her balance and stumbled back but her will yanked her forward because she wasn't going to fail when so close to her salvation, yet the wind declined her advance and bashed against her in one hard wave of unstoppable power, which sent her backtracking backwards with mud trails in front and accumulated poached mounds behind her._

 _But she couldn't keep her balance anymore and fell on her back, but because of the force, she began rolling down the hostile hill. She tried to grab onto something: a root, a stone, whatever would stop her downfall but there was nothing to grab onto, thus her arduous descent continued with an increasing pace, like an unstoppable avalanche of sorrow. The pain was excruciating, she couldn't breathe because the sticky petrichor nastiness was sneaking into her mouth and nose._

 _She hit her head on a large stone very hard and, despite her will to stay awake, she began losing consciousness as the exhaustion and distasteful throbbing inside the confines of her skull was just too great and her body just couldn't take it anymore, the only thing keeping her still awake: her sheer will alone._

 _But even her will wasn't invincible, as she wasn't seeing a point of fighting anymore and wanting the pain to end, so she slowly let go and surely began falling into darkness while losing any hope she had left and finally accepting the inevitable defeat._

 _A final battle._

* * *

Judy opened her eyes and gasped sharply while her ears hooked this painful yelling behind her door, while there was this feeling of dampness around the few places where sweat would usually accumulate from her glands, and her mouth stood open as she breathed quickly due to her quickened heart. Her ears were standing tall with hot blood having filled them up and she could feel the room's temperature reducing her raging body temperature. But… there was something… something awful in the air, something vilely repulsing and it was coming… from where was it coming?

She was still disoriented and confused, as her last memory was one of running up that hellish hill… and then falling…

 _What was that all about… felt so real…_ But she didn't have time to think upon the matter as she flinched because of those same voices from her dream and a hardening in intensity banging on her door.

" _EY BUNNY, YOU DEAD?_ "

" _WOULD SHE ANSWER IF SHE WERE?!_ "

" _I DON'T KNOW, STOP YELLING IN MY EAR!_ "

" _YOU STOP YELLING…_ "

There was this desperate banging against the pipes that were linked to her radiator which seemed to be coming from below, and it was all revolving around the mammals who were bickering outside, who she knew must've been her neighbours as they just loved to yell, even when plainly talking. It seemed that they were worried about her and because they wouldn't probably go away and leave the whole block alone, let alone anyone sleep, she stood up with some muscle cramps, from having slept in such a bad position, and headed towards the old door which was keeping the sacks of decibels from fully entering her realm.

The sounds of arguing were trying to sneak through the door's crack and when she twisted the knob and opened the door, they flooded in which got her hot ears to instantly glue to her back because it was indeed her neighbours from next door: Bucky and Pronk, who were now giving her a boiling headache. They were both twice her size and around equal in comparison between them, without even counting their horns' length.

Pronk was a slender gemsbok who was in a casual attire and had long, narrow and straight horns; tan fur color on most of his visible fur with white 'socks' around his hooves and feet; brownish-grey stripe before his snout, encircling it and going to his eyes in small lines, while Bucky, Bucky was just like Pronk but a kudu with spiraling horns and brown ears, while his stripes spiraled around his neck and towards his chest.

Both of them were roommates and lived next to Judy's apartment, her first impression on them when she first arrived in her new home, which was around a week ago, was that they were extremely noisy and would bicker with each other for the most simple and stupidest thing. She wouldn't have had a problem with that if the walls weren't paper-thin, yet she did keep her dissatisfaction to herself during the first days. But enough was enough and Judy confronted them about their behavior, which didn't yield perfect results, but at least they didn't dare raise their voices during the nights like they used to, for which Judy was grateful.

But right now, now they weren't noticing her and were continuing on very heatedly and loud like they would do all the time. And that was… irritating.

" _WHAT IF SOMETHING FELL ON HER AND CRUSHED HER?!_ "

"Ahem…" she coughed in her paw but it was as if she had just tried to paddle with a fork.

" _THEN WE WOULD'VE HEARD IT YOU FOOL!_ "

" _BUT WE HAVEN'T…_ "

Judy had had enough as the loud yelling was getting to the smallest atoms of her brain while twisting it to the extents of discomforting throbs. "Hey, I'm here," she tried to get their attention but they didn't seem to even register her presence, as their yelling was just too loud, which made her frown at the inconvenience and mumble something inaudible before inhaling very deeply. "I'M HERE!" this time she shouted loudly even more than both of them combined, thus making the loud duo to shut up and turn to look at her in surprise.

"Ey, bunny, you ain't dead!" Pronk gushed in surprise and smiled.

"It's Judy… why should I be?" she asked perplexedly, crossed her arms and tilted her head.

"Well, me and Bucky were just heading out when we got hit by this awful smell, you know. That kind of smell when something's dead."

She knew about the smell pretty well because it was everywhere around her room and even in the lobby, which was very strange. Had there been a problem with the plumbing? Why were they looking at her through narrowed eyes? "Hah, well I'm alive as you can see! Nothing to worry about!" she reassured awkwardly, which visibly arose misplaced suspicion in the two loud roommates, one of whom even crossed his arms with subtle disbelief.

"You sure? You ain't hiding some dead mammal in there… are you?" Bucky probed and moved towards the door, which made Judy to frown at the accusation and hit her forehead in annoyance.

"Of course not," she tried to say jovially but failed as it had been carried with a note of irritation, while she opened the door widely, showing off the entire room and home she lived in, well it was more like a small box rather than anything else. They both looked around but as they didn't see anything out of the ordinary, they tried to find the reason for the foul stench.

"Huh, 'kay then... But wait… is it… coming from you?" Bucky asked and sniffed at her direction as he leaned closer, which made him cough hard and hooves to reach for his eyes, which visibly watered, while his roommate laughed mockingly and patted him on the back in jeer.

"What the hell you swam in, ain't you a cop?" asked Pronk, which made her to flinch instantly as she remembered that she had forgotten to take the godly and necessary shower from last night. Mortification overtook her senses as she understood why they were behaving as such, due to her having been soaked with the essence of grotesqueness and she didn't want them to find out the reason for her miserable state of hygiene. She was a cop, not a janitor. And a cop she was to remain.

Not wanting to tell them what she had been doing the whole last day, she tried to figure something which would be as vague as possible. "Yes, of course!" she shoved a bit too fast, getting a strange look from both her nosey nuisances. "Just, you know… occupational hazards… _heh_ ," she explained nervously and hoped that they wouldn't ask any more questions and just go on with their day.

They both kept staring at her, seemingly unconvinced which was feeding her uncomfortableness, while she waited for the next question with dread, but the Carrot Lord seemed to be in a good mood today and answered her prayers.

" _Meeeh_ , whatever… just do something about it while we're gone, would you? The walls are damn thin. Our whole room is gassed, just you know," Bucky requested with slight aggravation and headed towards the stairs, while grabbing Pronk's arm in the process.

"Yea, bunny, we're glad you ain't dead!" added Pronk thrillingly before disappearing behind the corner where the corridor's wallpaper had begun peeling off.

Judy exhaled, her fears fading away from being pressed into disclosing it all and closed the door, after which she headed to the window. _How could I even fall asleep with these smelly clothes… gosh… And my fur is… Sweet cheese and crackers…_

She opened her window as to get some fresh life into her apartment and the air, as fresh as it could get from the bustling city, brushed against her cheeks soothingly, at least it was way crisper than the one in her room. Remembering that her phone was dead since yesterday morning, she got it out of one of her filthy _pocketses_ and frowned at its state, as it looked quite unkempt. She put it on the table next to her bed, plugged it to charge up and grabbed some towels for the long-overdue shower.

 _'Ey, bunny, you dead?'_ The silly memory of her neighbour's words and situation made her giggle in a very adorable way which returned some of her lost jovial spirit back. Without any more delay, she opened her door and headed towards her salvation from Nick's so called 'squalor', which was rather ironical that it actually happened in a different way, nevertheless, the bounce in her youthful step was duly noticeable.

* * *

Walking down the corridor, just fresh out of the shower and humming something to herself, Judy felt incredibly rejuvenated while immensely happy as well. She had a towel wrapped around her upper and lower part of her body and drops of water were still falling from the fur of her black-tipped ears, while her smelly janitor's uniform was left in the shower's sink, soaked with hot-blackened water and a lots of soap.

Getting to her room, she entered and immediately felt the now-fresh air that was all around the small apartment of hers, which got her to inhale deeply in savoring its purity. She went on and closed the exit to the world outside, as she was still soaked because there was the sensation of coldness on the exposed ends of her limbs, the day being still immature itself. She went over to the drawer, got another towel and started rubbing her damp fur, and while doing so, she thought about her time in heaven.

 _How did that filth even get in there is beyond me… I had that uniform and still… yuck…_ She grimaced in disgust, finished drying herself with the towels, grabbed her portable fur dryer and began blasting her fur with hot air as to remove any leftover moisture that had tried to elude her droughtings.

After she was satisfied with her fur condition, which looked puffy, she grabbed her towels and put them on the chair near the window where the sun's smile was at reach, after which she went to the drawer again and opened the bottom compartment. She was looking at her underwear which consisted of pure black trunks and black trunks with carrots all around.

They were both comfortable and even attractive to her eyes, well, the ones with the carrots especially, even if they were a tad stereotypical but, nevertheless. She didn't need to think much more and chose the black ones with carrots all around, which quickly snuggled around her hips, while her tail flopped through the hole and wiggled in excitement of the fresh pair after which she went towards the bed to grab her checked blue pajamas, while taking a packet of wet wipes that were on top that same drawer.

She put it on with ease and jumped onto the squeaking bed, to which she rotated on her back and just stared at the ceiling with a genuine smile. She felt relaxed, sweet and most of all: clean. Her head turned to the small table on her left, as she wanted to get her phone. She propped herself on her elbows and reached for it, while taking a wet wipe and as the dirty screen came into her paws, she began cleaning the, at least odorless, surface until her gadget was looking like new.

The charger came off and the little piece of advanced technology was powered on. While waiting for it to load, she wondered what was on Furbook and how her family was doing, more importantly, because it was hard to forget about them when she had lived for such a large part of her life with them. Just as she was about to close her eyes and continue her relaxation, realization hit her and she froze with widened eyes. It actually had been possible…

 _My family… OH NO!_

Panic struck her body, doubling her heart rate and making the loading time of the phone seem like an eternity. As it loaded, she immediately saw and heard those following notification sounds which were like an alarm clock. There were 17 missed calls and a dozen messages, most from her parents and some from her brothers and sisters, which made her groan in frustration and put her ears in front of her eyes.

Knowing that her parents would soon get a message that her phone was turned on, she knew she had to act and think fast. _How could I forget… Why did I forget! Now, what am I to say… 'Sorry for not calling, I was cleaning toilets and before that, sleeping with a fox… NEAR A FOX.'_

 _No-no, they can't find that out, or I won't hear the end of it… I've got to figure something out… Uhmpf… just a plain answer, that's it!_

She inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to calm her nerves and act calm, or her parents would quickly figure that something was wrong right off the bat. She really wanted to groom herself first because she looked like a stuffed toy but the newfound revelations were now of utmost priority so everything else could wait. Hesitantly and slowly, she pressed the call button on her phone, waiting with increasing anxiety and unwelcomed anticipation.

The line beeped several times and for a moment her worries started fading away as she thought that they weren't going to pick up, until, well until she heard a very familiar voice. " _Hello!? Judy, is that you! Oh, for goodness sake, you're alive! Wait, that's you… right?!_ " shot a feminine voice incredibly fast, sounding like one that belonged to her mother, Bonnie.

"What? O-of course mom. I'm alive, why wouldn't I be," answered Judy, taken aback by the questions she heard.

 _Why is this the 2nd time today someone asks if I'm alive!?_

" _Oh, nevermind, sweetie. Wait a second… would you… Stu! Stu, get your butt over here, your daughter's on the phone!_ "

" _Which one?_ " shouted Stu, who Judy faintly heard and the retort got her to roll her eyes and smirk faintly from amusement. Yea, her family was pretty big and her parents' ability to remember all of their kits was a feat of its own. She didn't even believe that they did remember them all but they had never shown her that, so she was to remain with her suspicions.

" _The most troublesome one! Get over here… honey, would you turn muzzletime, we'd like to see you! It's been so long,_ " Bonnie pleaded, sounding very excited to see her daughter.

"Mom… it's been like six days since I left… Well, with today seven… and two days since I've started work," Judy explained, turned muzzletime on and instantly saw both her parents on the screen, well only their pink noses and smiling mouths because they were too close to the camera. "Hey guys, go a little further back from the camera… can't see you," said Judy, giggling from their inexperience with technology.

" _Oh…_ " they said in unison and backed off, being entirely visible now. Her mother, Bonnie, looked a lot like Judy but older and without those black tips on her ears, whist white fur was in replacement of silver one. There were those same lavender eyes, which Judy had inherited, an extreme rarity within the family itself, while her plump father, Stu, was a brown rabbit with white fur on his muzzle and a green cap on his head with a carrot in front. He seemed to be heading towards the fields as he had put on his blue overalls and old shirt. He was the stereotypical rabbit but, nevertheless, her father.

"Okay, you're great!" Judy exhaled with a smile but lost it as she saw their expressions, which had morphed into ones of worry and fear.

" _Are you okay?! Why didn't you call? Why couldn't we reach you for so long?_ " they both shot in perfect sync, making Judy ask herself if they could read each other's thoughts and how scary it would be if they actually could.

"I am, I'm fine… don't worry. I couldn't call… had a lot of work yesterday and forgot about my phone. It must have died at some time I guess," she clarified, hoping that the explanation would satisfy her haunted-looking parents.

" _You worked so much? You didn't chase after criminals right? Or did you get in a shootout… That's not safe Judy!_ " spluttered Bonnie, visibly stricken with fear for her child.

"No-no, nothing like that, I was… _ehm_ … " - _Cleaning toilets…-_ "… working in the department all day, nothing dangerous!" _More like disgusting._ Judy reassured and managed to keep her ears straight, even if they wanted to droop very badly.

" _You hear that, Bonnie, she be working in the department where all the cops are. That's great! What exactly did they put you to do, Jude?_ " asked her father, sounding extremely curious, which managed to make Judy's nose to think and move on its own from the now building-up nervousness in her.

 _ARGH, think of something… anything… Aha!_ "I was given an assignment to help out a fellow colleague with a very delicate task," she explained and nervously smiled, hoping for the best. Stu seemed to have bought the answer, not visibly getting even a tad suspicious but her mother, on the other paw, had a very doubtful look, which was pulling out Judy's fake smile down slowly.

" _And what'd that be, sweetheart?_ " probed Bonnie which made Judy's ears to droop quickly and her to sigh in defeat to which Stu froze and his eyes filled with dismay.

" _No… they didn't make go to the place where they be keeping the bodies!_ " he shot with a voice that carried haunting and dread, it was, mildly put, so surprising that Judy forgot for a moment how to respond as the bafflement at the guess drowned her previous feelings of shame and thumping anxiety, which did get back but its severity was severed by her crazy father.

"What? No, it's just… I…" she wanted to dodge the answer but they weren't letting go, and lying was out of the question for her. "I helped with cleaning… the whole day…" she surrendered in embarrassment of her humiliating task, thus she closed her eyes and wanted to hit her head into something hard and sturdy.

Stu and Bonnie looked at each other, first in confusion but then they started cheering. " _That's great, sweetie!_ " exclaimed Bonnie with a bright smile and arms around her husband.

" _Yea, that be extremely safe, no criminals, no shootings, no bodies…_ " Stu then started rambling something about predators and such but Judy wasn't listening, as she was quite abashed by her parent's reactions.

 _Great? It was humiliating and awful, I would rather chase after criminals all day then the clean those filthy…_ Just the memories from the yesterday made her scrunch her face in disgust for who knows which time. She didn't want to argue with them, so she decided to play along, agreeing with them on this matter. "Yea, I guess it's pretty safe," she repeated gloomily which didn't go unnoticed by her mother, who hit her husband on the arm as to stop his blabbering.

" _Hey, hon, what's wrong? Is it about the job? We know you wanted to work as a cop. What happened?_ " asked her mother and Judy started trimming her fingers on her thigh, not wanting to explain further but seeing that she had no other choice but to do so.

"Ehm… yea, _heh_ … I kinda got it as punishment… for being… late," she laid it out and looked away, feeling embarrassed for her stupid mistake which had ruined her whole day.

" _JUDE THE DUDE WAS LATE?_ " yelled Stu, waving his paws erratically. "You be okay? You didn't hit your head whilst working? You aren't sick, ARE YOU?"

" _Oh for goodness sake, Stu, stop it. Could've happened to anyone._ " Stu visibly tried to object but his wife's threatening glare got him to drop it quickly. " _Let's leave her to her day now, we've got to go the fields anyway,_ " added Bonnie and pulled the brown buck's arm as to make him stop with his, free of charge, circus.

" _Umpf… yes we can do that…_ " He was being pushed off the camera's view when something made him stop and he came back, dragging Bonnie with him. " _Hey, Jude, you still got that fox repellant, right?_ "

The question made her blood to stop flowing and the guilt from the night before yesterday swarmed her body, making her feel extremely bad and regretful. _That stupid repellant… I can't tell him that I threw it away, it'll make him even crazier… think, Judy, think!_ "Y-yea… it's somewhere…" she told him with an uneasy smile, telling the truth but not in its whole form. _Somewhere in the back of a garbage truck._

"Good, you never know when you'd need it, those sneaky foxes are everywhere! _Ooof_ —" He got pulled hard by his wife and now the background of the house could only be visible, which consisted of a view of the tidy kitchen until Bonnie came into the frame in replacement.

" _Go on, Stu… Judy, you know your father is a bit… extreme sometimes… I feel a bit the same to be honest…_ " -her mother visibly became downcast for a mere moment- "but… Nevermind that!" -Bonnie smiled with drooped ears- " _Alright, well thanks for calling, hon, but I must be going or your dad could hurt himself if I leave him alone for another minute. Call later tonight, 'kay?_ "

"Okay, mom, I'll try, promise," Judy promised and hung up with a smile, as she was satisfied with how her conversation went and lay on her bed. She had a whole day ahead and ideas were already springing into life as her stomach rumbled in the need of food while her limbs wanted to be used, especially her feet which were starting to prickle from the want to jog, something she had grown used to, if not firmly attached to when she was steeling herself for the academy and throughout.

Thus she got out the bed and began readying herself for a nice breath of fresh air.

* * *

After an hour of running around a park that was close to her home, Judy came to a stop and sat on a bench for her size. She was very hot and was breathing heavily with ears of hard pink, as she tried to calm herself after the extensive exercise as well as from the regrets that she hadn't brought any water, the coarse feeling of thirstiness around her mouth getting her frustrated but she brushed it off quickly as her police training had made her very endurable, so she just sat under the shadows of an old oak tree and removed her earbuds which were blasting Gazelle's recent song.

She leaned against the bench and closed her eyes while trying to steady her disgruntled rhythm, which's effort was being aided by the chirping of birds, faint chatting of distant mammals and the rustling of many leaves, consequently a smile grew on her face in the most genuine way possible as euphoria was spreading around her sore muscles and bringing that feeling of content and accomplishment, the feeling of rest.

But the relaxing atmosphere was ruined by light steps which Judy detected coming from her side, and just as the steps were going to pass by her, they halted, the mammal who they belonged to audibly having had stopped in front of her, which made her slightly tired eyes to open and who she saw surprised her. It was a slim buck whose fur had a white color while his ears, nose and tail were black, the rest being obscured by casual clothing, yet stylish and she even thought that he looked good, he looked quite healthy.

When the buck registered that Judy had seen him, he waved and moved closer to the bench while giving her a welcoming small smile. "Hey," he uttered a meter away from Judy, keeping a respectable distance which was duly noted by her.

"Hi," returned Judy and wondered what the buck would want from her.

"I saw you running around the park for the last hour… as you passed by me several times. I was on a bench a few minutes from here. You seem to be a very good jogger, how'd you manage to get to such results?"

Judy was surprised from the question, not expecting it at all and feeling flattered by the buck's praising of her skills. " _Ehm_ … well you know… A lot of repetition, training time and determination, _heh_ … And I did finish the police academy 2 weeks ago, which was extremely tough if you ask me. It was like torture, at least the physical part," Judy explained and saw the buck's brows starting to go up in surprise.

"You finished… the ZPA? _Seriously_?" he asked sharply with an opened mouth.

She was taken aback by his sudden change of tone and frowned, thinking that he had tried to mock her somehow. "What, is it so hard to believe?" she shot and crossed her arms while her frown developed further.

"Ehm, no, _no_!... I mean _yes_! Of course it's hard to believe! I've never heard of a fellow lapine managing to get into the academy… let alone finish it … I don't think it's ever been done… at least in Zootopia," -his confusion turned into visible respect and beaming curiosity which translated into his next words- "You're a real champ, showing those big guys in the academy that our species aren't to be taken lightly," the buck finished with a lot of positive emotion and a wiggling tail, which she saw.

Understanding what he had really meant, the flattery managed to get to her again as the praising of her achievements was something she rarely got. "Well… _uhm…_ thanks… I guess…" she muttered a bit awkwardly and shyly, not knowing how else to react, let alone respond.

"Oh, _ahm_ … yea, I forgot to introduce myself. Name's Brad" -Judy tried to get off the bench as to engage in a pawshake but saw the buck motioning her to stop- "no need, don't worry."

"Alright, name's Judy. Pleased to meet you."

"Likewise. So, Judy, where'd they send you to?" It seemed that he was genuinely interested in a subject most found insane or tedious because of her species which translated to the lack of respect that usually would make her to keep what she had to herself, yet the buck had managed to untie her tongue.

"Oh, I was valedictorian when I finished the academy, so they sent me to Precinct one."

The answer visibly surprised the buck greatly, his eyes widening in excitement. "Precinct one? That is the biggest PD in whole Zootopia. It's even in the center of here. You're awesome, Judy!"

This time, she blushed at the compliment and smiled even more radiantly. " _Heh_ … would've wished I got such support back at home," she disclosed a bit gloomily and looked at her prickling feet that she swung in the air below.

"Really? _Huh_ , such a shame. I mean, I think that what you've done is a very big accomplishment…" -he pursed his lips- "but I guess that not everyone thinks like that… where're you from?"

"Bunnyburrow, obviously," she answered with a bit of quip in her voice, as the thought about him not finding it out just from the way she looked was non-existent because Nick didn't have such an issue when reading who she was, well, he wasn't that precise and she had shown him that which was probably the reason why he actually disclosed any information with her in the first place. Tho, it seemed that the buck really didn't think she was from there before she had told him, as his eyebrows were raised high as if he were greatly shocked.

"Well, it wasn't that obvious for me if I asked, _he-he_ ," the buck added nervously and looked at his elegant watch on his arm which got his leg to start thumping the ground, which she thought was definitely cute if she was truthful to herself. He did have some unique traits in fur color as well as taste for looks, which was grabbing her eyes that would go over him in quick scrutinizations, which were reflexively getting her to keep up her real smile as there was this giddy feeling from having received positive attention at last since she had come to the big city.

"Listen, Judy… as much as I'd love to continue our chat. I have to really go… I've got something to _take_ care of… Would you like… like tomorrow morning, to meet up so we can get to know each other better?"

It didn't come up as a big surprise that he had just offered that, as the idea itself had even raced through her mind but she had quickly disbanded it because of its implications, yet it wouldn't hurt to socialize as that would make things easier for her if she had someone to talk to, easier by a ton, thus, as she didn't see anything to obstruct her from accepting his spot-on offer, she returned, " _Ahm_ … yea, sure… don't have anything planned for tomorrow anyway."

"Great, so 10AM at the café Jesse and H. They make great salads there, you'll love 'em… You know where that is?" he asked with raised eyebrows.

"Of course I do!" she answered a bit too fast, sounding unconfident for the buck before her.

"You sure?" He tilted his head slightly with a barely-visible smirk. She gave the buck a disapproving glare with a light frown which got her point across even tho she didn't have the slightest idea where that was, but she wasn't going to embarrass herself when she could just search for the café's location on her phone.

The rabbit put both his opened paws in the air in surrender. "Okay, got it!" -he looked around himself and sighed- "well then, 'till tomorrow," he closed and took his leave with a warmly-parting wave.

"Bye!" chirped Judy, liking the idea that she had met a fellow rabbit in the big metropolis of Zootopia, who didn't deem her as insane or outright stupid for her choice of profession, with the possibility probably after tomorrow of them becoming friends. _What if he is trying to… you know…_

 _He isn't!_

 _What if he is?_

 _Well, he does look good but that doesn't mean anything, I just met him._

 _So, you want to remain Jude the Dude your whole life?_

 _I got more important matters to attend to, I don't have time for wooing._

 _Keep lying to yourself, just like you did with Mr. Foxy._

 _I… I didn't! Shut up!_

Judy's body temperature increased slightly and she put her ears in front of her eyes while murmuring something in gibberish. After she cooled down, she hopped off the bench and headed towards the supermarket, which was close to her apartment, needing to buy some groceries as she had ran out of appropriate food.

While walking, she thought about the next day, about her job, about the situation in Zootopia, about her carrot pen and about Nick. The thoughts raging from negative to the polar opposite and getting her to move her jaw left and right from slight agitation.

 _I hope I won't have to use it… but it's not up to me…_

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	6. Bitter Blueberry Muffins

**Chapter Six**

 **Bitter Blueberry Muffins**

Judy was sitting inside the café Jesse and H, waiting for the white-furred buck, who had offered her to meet up there when they had met yesterday at the relaxing park she had jogged in. She was 10 minutes early than the negotiated time, as she didn't want to be late and make a bad impression and show him that she was just a lazy country bunny who couldn't keep track of her tasks. She didn't find the place very easily because of the abbreviation that it had, which took her an ample amount of time to figure out when searching for on the web.

The inside of the establishment consisted of tables and chairs of different sizes so that accommodation could be met for all mammals: big and small. The floor was covered with ebony-walnut planks that seemed to have been cleaned recently, which made Judy smile in satisfaction from the condition of the place. The walls were covered with wallpapers of green vines, which spread in different directions with a light-brown background. The vines were creeping up to the café's ceiling where they would end, while the ceiling had very artistic paintings: many leaves one under another overtaking the whole surface, so it looked like as if you were underneath the giant trees of the Rainforest District.

And then there were the tables and chairs, which were made from sturdy oak with those eye-grabbing flower and leaf ornaments that were embedded into the furniture itself, thus matching the café's surroundings and creating a very cozy atmosphere which was like that of a lonely cabin in the mountains.

There was a small flat TV mounted on the wall close to Judy that was streaming a news broadcast, which managed to attract her attention as there was nothing else to be seen and boredom wasn't an option. It seemed that a reporter who was out of frame was asking a female rat in a lab coat questions.

"— _It's understandable but we found that you've managed to make a great tech-breakthrough. Care to tell us more about that subject?_ " asked the reporter, who appeared to be a big mammal with a light voice, and moved the microphone towards the small mammal who was standing on a big table with tubes on its sides that seemed to be used for transportation.

" _But of course!_ " -began the rat with a squeaky voice- " _our last discovery from two years ago, which was the multifunctional exoskeleton, is now going to be modified with a neural link… Let me clarify. We managed to successfully adhere a computer with the central nervous system of a mammal, and have got it to work in sync with the machine itself! The signals the processor receives are then transmitted to the specific parts of the steel construct and mimic the motions the mammal wants to do. It's like mammals at last have the opportunity for augmentation with sophisticated apparatuses!_ "

Another rat in a lab coat came in view and stopped half a meter behind the interviewed scientist but crossed his arms and his whiskers began twitching around. " _You've managed to merge mammal and machine? But what's the reason for those newfound grounds?_ " The question seemed to have stunned the female rat, whose whiskers fell, and she scratched her chin while looking around, furthermore, just as she was about to answer, the male rat who was behind her grabbed her shoulder and intervened.

" _Don't worry, I'll remark that_ " -the female rat nodded and took her leave as she put her paws in her pockets- " _we at B.D-M are known for many accomplishments. This new discovery will help many who are paralyzed or have very ambiguous diseases that prevent them from being able to move or function properly. With the merging of the central nervous system to a responding electrical circuit and with that, a working external body, we're going to have the opportunity to make the lives of those mammals normal again. Of course you may ask if it'll be used for military or enforcement purposes but that cannot be answered at this mere moment._ "

The reporter went quiet for a while as notes from the corner of the lens could be seen moving, until the voice came again, " _Right… what about B.D-M weaponry and tech that was found with the combatants in the newly arisen conflict that is being fought in the country of Apenine? How did it get into their possession?_ "

The rat didn't seem bothered at all with the question and calmly answered, " _We work with many benefactors and have all our contracts public. What happens after we ship out and finish them, we don't know and we cannot know. How did that technology get into their possession is not the question that the B.D-M can answer because we don't have the required information to do so._ "

" _But can't that equipment be tracked?_ " asked the reporter.

" _Of course it can but it isn't our responsibility to do so, being illegal for us to spy on anyone anyhow. We can provide our records to the public and we already have but we'd rather not continue to talk about this subject because everything we can give is already given_ " -the rat checked his watch in one swift motion- " _if you don't have any more questions, I deem this interview over._ "

The reporter fidgeted with the microphone for a bit as the representative had either answered or declared that he wouldn't talk about what was wanted. " _Thank you for your cooperation,_ " returned the reporter in a voice of slight disappointment and the rat took his leave. The camera then moved towards the reporter and it could be seen that it was a female camel with light-brown fur and a brown suit. " _And that was it folks, it seems that the B.D-M don't want to shed light on who's supplying the rebels with weapons and other resources. We'll be…_ "

Judy stopped watching and listening because she lost interest. There were some customers a few tables away from her, who were chatting silently, therefor she couldn't overhear anything even if she did have those satellite ears of hers. Therefore, she moved her head towards the table and started drumming her fingers in boredom. Because of not having anything else to do in her current situation, she began reflecting upon her recent days, activities, and ' _adventures_ '. She thought about her dream from yesterday that had made her somewhat confused about its context, yet she knew that it had some meaning even if it was just a fantasy.

Savanna Central was a really diverse place as she had once again just walked around the place, her eyes not being able to take it all as the shops, bars, cafés, restaurants and all kinds of other establishments were just endless, while the designs were always different, as some were suited for all mammals or just for only a few types. She was to lie if she said that she wasn't experiencing a cultural shock but it was a very pleasant one because everything was so flashy, so vibrant and exciting. There were so many products, so much diverse foods and recipes, so many things to do and yet to see…

But in between, there was her dream. It didn't fade away like her others would, it was very memorable from start to finish, and she didn't know why that was the case, which was like a thorn in her butt every time she had taken a step forward, a small but existing thorn of discomfort and mild anxiety. She remembered that the issue couldn't be tackled all day and huffed in exasperation as there was no need to keep chasing her tail due to the futility of the idea.

What about the buck's motives then, what were his real intentions of wanting to meet up in a place like this? Yes, it wasn't something crazy or romantic, just a normal spot where mammals could talk without being interrupted, and share a salad or two. Yet, she wasn't sure if he was making a move or just wanting to make a friend. Making a friend was alright by her entirely but the other way around, she wasn't that sure she was interested. But, he did look good and didn't seem to be the asshole type like most of the bucks she had interacted with in her hometown who just wanted to stick their carrot into something but she couldn't be sure until she got to know him, which was exactly what was going to happen.

She used to be in a few relationships during high school and her employment on her family farm, while waiting to be accepted into the Police Academy, but they didn't progress much due to her constant busyness and endless amounts of tasks she had to complete. And because of that, those that were interested in her would lose it and that would translate into their behavior, with one buck even daring to go onto his phone and ignore her for a whole few minutes, which had angrily filled her ears with more blood and she had left without even saying a word. She couldn't believe such mammals for whom she would peel off her precious time and they would just waste it.

It made her distant from dating as there were other means of stifling the needs of nature, while the emptiness was filled with constant work and thus the need just became a distant and rarely-occurring reality. After she got into the academy, due to some luck, relationships just exited her head as she always had to keep on track about what she had to do and what she had to learn, therefor, there was just no time to think about anything affectionate or remotely different from the material needed to become an officer of the law.

She knew that sacrifices had to be made if she was going to become a cop, and she wasn't going to let distractions to keep her away from her long-awaited dream. But now, now she wasn't out of deep waters yet but she did have some free time and could probably use it… probably.

 _I mean, I could try and see what happens and where it could lead to, it won't hurt._

 _What about Mr. Foxy? You do have a thing for him you naughty doe._

 _NO! That isn't true… and it's not like he is interested in me… he even said that I'm a dumb bunny!_

 _If he wasn't, he wouldn't have bothered to try and show you how things are. You saw his expression when he pointed out the fox repellant. And after you showed him who you truly are? It was like… boom! Amazement!_

 _ARGH, too… much… THINKING!_ Judy plopped her head onto the table and grumbled in irritation as the red fox had again managed to sneak into her head with her brain remembering his scent as well as behavior which was somewhat tauntingly-pulling, even if he was being very cocky. There was just something behind that façade, something he had shown her in those moments of exhaustion and visible want to show her how things were.

" _Hello_ , I'm sorry… did you wait too long?" someone asked from near her, to which she pulled her head from the table and saw a female leopard waitress with a dark yellow uniform that had two orange stripes that went from both the shoulders and down to the ankles. She had served the question guiltily while her eyebrows had huddled together on her young face.

Judy realized what her behavior must've looked like to the other mammals around her and, with perked ears and an awkward smile of nervousness, she answered, "No-no-no, nothing like that! Nothing to worry about!"

" _Oh_ , okay! Do you want a menu or you're just going to drink something?"

The doe fumbled with her small claws a bit, wanting to say coffee but knowing that the caffeine wouldn't be a very practical decision for her meetup. " _Uhm_ … do you have green tea?"

"Sure we do, it'll be ready in a few minutes. Anything else or this'll be it for now?"

"Just tea, thanks," Judy answered collectedly and the waitress nodded in response after which her feet began carrying her away from Judy's table. That was when she remembered something crucial and shouted it in misplaced panic, "No sugar!" to which the waitress abruptly stopped and turned her head in momentary confusion, until she understood and smiled in response, after which she went on her way yet again. Just as Judy was about to get bored again and finally pull her phone from her pocket to chat with somebody, something she didn't want to resort to, she saw the entrance door to open and the mammal she had been waiting for to enter. The phone showed the time being exactly 10:00am, which made her smirk in satisfaction at his precision.

The buck managed to meet her gaze and began closing in, and while he was getting closer, she began examining him: from clothes to fur. He was wearing matte black trousers in harmony to his ears and tail; grey long-sleeved button-down shirt; and looked extremely well groomed. His paws were both in his pockets with both of his thumbs sticking out, while his elegant watch could be seen from the end of his unbuttoned sleeve. She wasn't going to put herself in constrained thinking and tell herself that he wasn't looking good as he definitely took care of himself, which was appreciated for her wide eyes.

As he got to the table, he waved at her warmly and sat on the chair, putting his arms in front and smirking at her with ears high and tall. Her eyes trailed up his black appendages from curiosity as to marvel their difference as they were even longer than hers and made him look, well taller. Then came the scent of his perfume which had a floral smell that tickled the insides of her nostrils in a good way but it was a tad much in her opinion, thus as her observations came to an end, she got to a conclusion.

 _He's going to try and make a move… why, why… he doesn't even know me, yet he tries to… Maybe he's trying to make a good impression?_

"Hey, Judy, you're looking good today," the buck began and smiled somewhat suggestively.

 _Good impression my fluffy butt!_

"Hey, Brad, thanks." She didn't return the compliment, not wanting to play the exchange game and just needing to have a simple and normal conversation. Not one filled with flirting and pleasantries even tho she didn't mind the part with the pleasantries as they were always appreciated, as long as they were real and not grovel-induced.

Brad's tall ears fell behind his back and his smile dissipated. "You didn't wait a lot on me, did you?"

" _Ehm_ …, you were on time and no, I didn't," she answered with a snort from his silly question that succeeded at cooling her nerves a bit as he wasn't trying hard and at least was being casual about it.

"Great, did you order anything?"

"Just tea… but I don't know what else to choose… you said they make good salads, didn't you? Any recommendations?" The side of his lips tugged into a gentle smirk.

"I'd recommend the specialty one… it haaas…" -he rubbed his chin for a moment as his eyes strayed away for a second- "lettuce… tomatoes… oh, and carrots, heh" –his claws scratched the fur on his ears in visible embarrassment- "I know! But it's awesome and we all love carrots, don't we?" He wasn't far away from the truth, which got her to snort in return and stifle a giggle. "I don't know how they always balance the vinegar… It's what I'm going to order and I advise you do the same!" He sent her a wink as he intertwined his, propped on the table, paws and lay his head on them, showing his focused attention which was kinda making her feel a bit uncomfortably-hotter than usual.

At that moment, the waitress returned with Judy's tea and accidently brushed the buck with her long-spotted tail to which he flinched and moved his warm gaze at the leopard, his expression changing instantly, which Judy immediately detected. "And here's yo—"

The waitress couldn't finish as the buck, in a very serious and dark tone insisted, "I'd appreciate if you kept your tail to yourself!" His sardonic expression sat firm around his initials and didn't even waver for a moment, while the accused's brows went up in confusion as she was visibly trying to understand what had happened, until she did.

" _Oh_! I'm very sorry, sir! I didn't mean anything by that, it was just an accident!" she explained apologetically with a voice filled with slight fear. The buck looked over the spot the tail had made contact, which got his black ears of confidence to droop, and he dusted off the spot of contact with his paw as if there was a dirtiness present, which in turn made Judy's lungs to try and squeeze air out and her to call him out about what he had just did but she clamped it shut and decided not to just jump to conclusions. Maybe he was just overprotective of his personal space?

Even with the warning signals popping inside her brain, she tried to shut them off, as she still wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, thus she tried to lighten the situation by giving the waitress their orders, which the leopard happily took and left them to themselves. Judy thought that the buck had said through a mutter ' _filthy pred_ ' after the waitress left but brushed it off, thinking that it was her imagination getting the better of her. "Sooo…" –she made a circular motion with her finger on the table- "you never told me where you were from…"

The buck moved his gloomy gaze, which returned its previous color quickly, back to her and answered without that irritation that was present just moments ago, "Zootopia, I've lived here all my life actually… Never saw a reason to move out of this city… I occasionally go visit relatives in Bunnyburrow… as well as my parents who moved there a few years ago," he finished with an exasperated sigh and a roll of his eyes.

The answer slightly surprised her as to why mammals who had settled down in the big city would want to get out. "Why'd they move?"

The buck shrugged his shoulders. "They said that they'd had enough and wanted to go home… something like that. I really can't still understand… doesn't matter" –he made a motion with his paw that showed his unwant to continue the specific topic- "but hey, I was born here so what can I say. For me, home's Zootopia."

Judy sipped from her tea and thought about herself. She did like it here but actually felt that something was missing, a part of her life, her actual home. Yea, the experience and wonder was pleasant but the loud nights weren't when she wanted to just kill her exhaustion, while in Bunnyburrow, such problems weren't present as the night were as quiet as death itself. "So… what do you work?" asked Judy, not being able to figure a better question, and not wanting to get gloomy by thinking about what she was about to. After all, small talk was necessary to build the foundations of what was to come.

"Work?" –he showed the inside of his paws while waving them dismissively but his expression was rather… ingenuine- "Here and there… I'm still studying in university. Actually! It's my last year! Managed to accidently lay myself on business economics, but hey, it'll pay well in the end…" –he rubbed the sides of his temple as if a headache had just came and went- "Nevermind… I don't want to bore you with this, since I know first-pawedly that it's very tedious to talk about it..." he trailed off and lost eye contact with her after which some uncomfortable silence befell them and Judy did not like it even one bit.

"I tried university as well but after the 1st year, I dropped out," she began and grabbed the full attention of the buck who was now with raised eyebrows and a slightly opened mouth.

"Why'd you do that? Don't you have a higher chance at the academy if you get your bachelor's?" he asked as his ears fell behind him and his paws moved in front.

"Yes… but that was the issue. I didn't need a higher chance because there were already free spots at the academy" –her paws moved close to each other serving as a small shield- "I knew that I was getting the highest scores at the tests but someone didn't want me there… apparently. "She sighed sadly and slumped her head onto one of her propped paws. "But after 4 years and many applications, I was accepted probably because there were too many free spots. I didn't need a degree that wouldn't do me any good because I wanted to be an officer of the law. So I used my time to work and learn," she explained and huffed because she had been kept away, for such a long time, from her dream, yet it wasn't a dull period as she thought about it.

She'd had her fun but there was always something amiss, that sense of adventure she'd try to fill by mountaineering, hanging out with her friends and sisters, participating in different kinds of events as well as managing some, and even visiting distant relatives but she didn't know why she never visited Zootopia. What had kept her away from this place of diversity and wonder? She knew that it was linked with her attempts to become a cop as well as those to even join the academy itself. It was like her mind was telling her that only when she succeeded, then it'd allow her to go and experience the wonders of the giant and majestic metropolis.

"Tell me then, why a cop?" the buck changed the topic with a curious expression.

Judy nervously smiled, having to tell another mammal yet again why she had chosen to be a cop, so she sipped from her tea and cleared her throat. "Well, because I wanted and I want to make the world a better place, simple as that!" she explained jovially-false and swung her fist in the air once for effect, which seemed to have worked as the buck wasn't able to catch onto her notes of obscurity that her voice had carried.

"Yes, it's a simple idea but I don't see it as easy to accomplish. How'd you manage throughout the academy tho?"

"It wasn't extremely hard. I'd prepared before I was accepted in but it was still a bit difficult, at least the physical part as I mentioned yesterday…" –she scratched her thigh because she thought that a muscle cramp had come back as there was a training injury from those times, yet it was just a false alarm- "there were just some exams which were made for mammals with claws or lots of physical strength" –she shivered from a certain memory- "there was this course with the giant ice wall and water in front. _Ughhh_ … hated that part… fell like, I don't even remember how many times. I just couldn't grab onto the ice and I couldn't use my claws…" She showed her small, yet pristine, beige claws to the buck and huffed.

"I couldn't break the ice so I'd step or grab onto. But in the end I figured it out. I just used the holes that the other cadets had created and hopped up. Once I even used their heads and finished first… I know it was selfish of me but no harm was done!" she finished with a guilty smile.

"Selfish? They made you climb an ice wall! What's fair about that?" the buck related with hints of outrage which somehow stirred the confrontational side of hers because she knew that everything was square even if it wasn't easy. Being a bunny didn't mean she had to be offered special attention and treated differently, that would've ruined the point she had been trying to show across all her life, it being that she could do everything everyone else could.

"Everyone was on the same page. I didn't want special attention anyway so what's fair for everyone else, is fair for me."

The buck visibly tried to retort but failed as his mouth shut with a few twitches of his black nose, until he mumbled unsurely, "Just seems unfair…"-he scratched his fur behind his neck in frustration-"soooo… what about police work, what'd they put you to do?" he changed the subject quickly which caught Judy slightly off-guard and she almost chocked on the tea that she was sipping at that given moment.

" _Ahmmm_ … fine!" -she gushed too fast which didn't sound very convincing- "It's great but one step at a time right? I'm still a rookie and I am being introduced to the department!" The explanation she gave was too forced and the buck didn't seem convinced as he had this disbelieving look and slight smirk on the side of his lips as if he had caught onto her small white lie.

"You got any cases to work on?"

 _I wish I did…_ "Not yet, and I don't think I'll soon get any. It's just is as it is," Judy answered gloomily because she didn't know when Bogo would let her do her job and stop sending her to do something that hadn't needed all this training and learning that she had went through. Maybe if she hadn't been top of her class, maybe she would've been sent to another Precinct where she wouldn't have had a prejudiced boss, but she had already given her ticket and the ride had started, there was no stepping out until it either finished or crashed, none of which she wanted to soon experience.

Brad's frown that he had adopted after hearing her answer changed to a small smile and he said something unexpected, "They haven't seen the potential in an intelligent and clever doe like yourself. They must be missing such a big opportunity to improve the department, _huh_ … shame on them," the buck finished the sentence with a harsher voice.

Judy felt her ears increase their temperature at the compliment and she let them fall behind her, so he wouldn't see their reddened color. " _Uhmmm_ , thanks… but I think you are praising me _toooo_ much just because I've managed to become a cop. It's nothing _speeeecial_ really." She was dodging of meeting his gaze because of the slight shyness that had entered her system, yet her eyes were rebelling against her decision as they were interested in seeing his reactions as well as body behaviour.

"What's there not to praise? You are _beautiful_ , brilliant, selfless, and've managed to become the first bunny cop in Zootopia! It just has never happened!"

Judy now really blushed, not having received such compliments for a long time which made her feel giddy inside. She could see what the buck was doing but he didn't seem bad after all, he seemed genuine and she couldn't find any hidden intensions in his behavior. She noticed the waitress coming towards them with their salads, and now had an excuse to look at the buck, whom she observed as the leopard passed by him. He was smiling while looking at the waitress but Judy saw some twitching in his lips and doubt finally infected her. There was something that he was hiding while his attempts seemed to be building failures as his body just reacted instinctively to his real-self.

Her mind hoped that tricks were being played by her imagination because he didn't seem like a bad mammal, yet many things in life used to have a shiny surface and rotten backside, thus she dug into her salad with increasing suspicion, while there was something reddish that was trying to catch her attention just behind the dining buck, something familiarly-alarming and… comforting? But she didn't yield and continued as her stomach yelled at her to taste the freshly-smelling mash of vegetables.

 _You're just imagining things…_

* * *

Nick had just came to Zootopia to buy some necessities as he had ran out of a special ingredient for his normal functioning of his daily life: blueberries. His tongue was constantly going around his teeth in search for any hidden nectar that could've had the displeasure of getting stuck and not managing to slide down his throat and into the ocean of sourness. But alas, there was nothing as he had brushed them previously and the emptiness lingered not only in his stomach but around his mouth, which had just pushed him to make a trip back, even if he didn't want to today.

The sidewalks were busy and mammals were going onto their daily lives, while he navigated himself to a place where he knew they made really good food for him to feast upon with his salivating maw. There were many like it but this one had quality as well as memories, while the mammals who worked there weren't prejudiced assholes who would pick on him just because he was a fox. Mammals wouldn't let him get near them and would always look at his paws which he would wiggle in mockery while smirking at them in jeer as that was the only way to get on their nerves, not confronting them about him not being who they thought he was. There was just no point. He could take their money without even resorting to such methods.

He could now see the place with its dimmed windows and wooden ornaments in the shapes of trunks that were above the shop's visor but he was on the other side of the road and the crosswalk wasn't even close, so he shrugged his shoulders and decided to just jaywalk it even if there was a possibility to be caught by a patrolling officer, especially by a particular one who had served him a threat under a condition he just wasn't content on agreeing to. But he could give her at least that, she was a very honest mammal and that quality was incredibly admirable, even if he deemed it very threatening if she were to continue where she was heading to.

A loud horn shredded his thoughts and got him to recoil back in reflex as he had actually forgot to look around, with a car almost colliding with him if he didn't have his survival instincts inside his scheming head of his. His tail swayed angrily as his mouth moved in slight irritation at himself and the driver who hadn't even lowered the speed of the big vehicle, thus Nick's head peeked around the parked cars he was situated between, and he casually walked across the road and got to the other side, making one of the drivers on the other lane to slow considerably, probably fearing that Nick would jump onto the car for insurance fraud.

The car brushed just by his tail and he turned slightly with an evil smirk as the driver flipped him the finger with a swiftly moving mouth that was probably spewing very dirty breath, a sight that made Nick to snicker and jump onto the curb at last, the café's entrance being just in front of him, which got his long tongue to lick the rim of his lips in a very suggestive way, as if the food was going to be something sexually indulging.

He waited for a camel, seemingly male, to enter the shop and Nick followed in his steps, liking the idea of mammals opening the doors for him as if he were some very influential individual, while he kept his paws in his pockets and walked cockily. The hot air brushed against him and that aroma of loveliness almost made him to rush in front the camel and get his spot in line but he kept his cool and slowly progressed till he came to a stop. The smell of baked muffins was tickling his nose and his feet were beginning to sting in restlessness, thus he needed to elude his imagination in some way.

That was when he heard it, that feminine but firm voice which was very hard to not put a name to, a voice that flicked his ears and got him to turn around as to see that over-energetic mammal, who was at a table with a very well-dressed buck, who just seemed too well-groomed. Was she on a date or just with someone she knew? His lips tugged into a very wide grin as he knew that his boredom was ending here and now as the doe was just too fun to be around, thus he yielded his spot on the line and slowly moved towards the probable lovebirds' table.

Yea, the buck was groomed very well and even had some interesting traits, considering his long black ears, while the scent of floral perfume moved around the air, intensifying with each step taken closer to the rounded table. His body language spoke interest to which Judy wasn't pulling away. That was when the leopard waitress brought their salads to which the buck's black tail instantly fell while one of his paws scratched his neck as the waitress got close to him as to serve him his meal, and that made Nick to grin like mad as he could see a lot what the buck was visibly trying to hide hard.

It wasn't easy for some small-minded mammals to keep their instincts in check, hell, even Judy was betraying herself by instinct and she wasn't even close to being stupid. But this buck, he just gave that vibe, that hateful vibe he knew very well due to having had experienced it many times during his lifetime, especially during his teenage years where things weren't as slick as honey. If he was right, Judy would definitely confront the buck about it and that was a spectacle he wanted to see, even if it were to be short.

The time to be the annoying fox he could be was nigh, and he began his quest of making the buck a fool of himself and ruining his ideas for a doe he didn't deserve if the assessment was to be correct. Not that it was his decision to make for her but she had shown him who she was in quite the details and just knew. The buck was acting very confident but that didn't mean that the glass wasn't already chipped, so just as Nick was nearing the table, he began swaying his auburn-tipped tail and just as he was to pass by the buck, he tapped him hard on the side of the thigh, and quickly reached for his tail as he turned around, scraping his claws onto the buck's leg and getting him to flinch with salad flying off his fork and onto his pants.

"The hell? Keep your dusty broom to yourself!" spat the buck with anger and hints of malice in his voice as he tried to remove the dripping piece of lettuce from himself and dusting himself off from the touch as well as lines that Nick's sharp claws had made. At least he hadn't decided to be a complete asshole and apply more force which would've definitely cut the fabric.

The time for the circus of the day was now, thus, with an apologetic face, Nick began in a very sorrowful voice "Oh, I'm very sorry! I didn't mean to… _shucks_ … he has a mind of his own, you know?" he explained and stepped aside, wanting Judy to see him fully while not moving his sad eyes from the visibly ready-to-fume bunny, while he could feel that the corner of his lips were trying to be honest and move upwards into a genuine smile as his lungs were squeezing in attempts of laughter. But he was experienced and wasn't going to allow himself such a mistake or the con might fail, which would've resulted in a newer one but this one was just the best.

"Nick? What're you doing here?" came that familiarly-cheerful voice which now sounded happily-surprised and he turned around with raised eyebrows.

The insides of his paws faced her as he spread them apart, as he began with a bewildered tone, "Carrots! What're the odds? Small city, _huh_? So what, you and Mr. Tough here on a date?" –she tried to object as one of her paws went up but he wasn't stopping- "I didn't know you like them bad but don't worry, I'm not to judge," Nick quipped and looked towards the buck who was now visibly fuming out his scorn, one of his eyelids visibly twitching while his teeth were showing in sneer.

"Carrots, what…? That's none of your business, _chomper_!" the buck barked with hatred, not being able to contain himself anymore from the visible attempt of meddling with his plans which Nick had seen through, now being definitely sure that the buck was a hateful little sprite.

That was when Judy's voice came, and all was going as planned to which he almost failed and ruined his hurt expression from the craving smirk that was now cramping his face muscles. "Wait, Brad, he didn't mean anything by that… we know each other so—"

But Nick threw more oil into the fire and interrupted her, "Brad? Can this get any more stereotypical," he bashed again and guffawed, hitting his knees and finally managing to break the buck's mental barriers which was a bit too fast but so worth it either way.

"Shut the fuck up you _disgusting_ _Pelt_! Get the hell out of here! Nobody likes your damn _kind_!" the buck spat without pause while pointing a finger threateningly at Nick, hence his shouting managed to draw many stares from the patrons of the café, with some having disapproving glares while others were curious of what would happen next.

His plan hard worked, and he had managed to make the buck a fool from himself. " _Mmmmm_ , you pick 'em gooood. He seems to be a very dangerous _wabbit_ ," Nick continued his taunts and grinned in satisfaction while flashing his teeth in the process. His head moved towards Judy whose mouth was hanging open and he figured that the realization who the mammal in front of her was had plagued her thinking.

"You FILTHY PRE—"

The buck couldn't finish as Judy talked over him very firmly, uncompromisingly, and dangerously, "Brad… I want you to leave, now!" she more like ordered harshly with crossed arms, lowered eyebrows, and a very horrifying glare that got Nick to gulp as he knew from their pawshake that the doe could very well take care of herself as well as hurt mammals bigger than her, let alone the young buck who seemed to be full of himself, yet couldn't even hide his true feelings during his attempts of scoring. Such a little twat.

"B-b-but—" the buck stuttered before another harsh and loud interruption that almost raised Nick's hackles.

"NOW!" she hissed.

 _You're one scary bunny… still cute tho!_

He kept those thoughts to himself and moved closer to the buck who was slack-jawed with a frozen paw in the air as if he was struck by paralyzing poison but when Nick's tail again touched his leg, he broke out of his daze by shaking his head and frowned at Nick with a cough which sent pieces of spit flying towards his face, yet Nick was fast and put a paw to shield at least some part of himself.

 _Oh you're so getting it asshole._

Brad really was full of himself as he sat up on the side where Nick was waiting in great anticipation, and that was when Nick moved into his personal space and leaned against the chair the bunny had been sitting on, while his foxy shadow overtook the now-hesitant buck who was a head smaller. Nick brushed his claws on his own shirt and examined them as if they had supposable dirt, after which he grinned madly with some forced anger which made the buck's nose to begin twitching at last.

"Forgetting something?" Nick put in sardonically with a tilted head while his head moved closer to the Brad's, his canines sticking out like knives and instilling primal fear into the poor prey who had acted so high and mighty just seconds ago, the sight was just shameful as well as disgraceful.

"W-w-what?" the buck stuttered with a now-thumping leg as his composure had seemed to have completely broken down.

"You wouldn't forget to pay for the meal of this charming lady, would you now?" Nick pointed with his sharp claw towards Judy who was scowling and glaring so hard at the buck that Nick thought that she'd jump over the table and just throw him out herself. Fearing that she would just do that out of impatience, being a bunny and all, he put his free paw on the table and fully entrapped the buck who huddled both his paws to his chest in visible trepidation and when the wood was screechingly-scraped by Nick's keratin extensions, Brad reached instantly for his wallet and pulled out the required sum but Nick interjected instantly.

"And a good tip for the waitress for giving her the stink-eye. That'd be fair, no?" he pressed with curled lips, which were exposing his sharp teeth, while his unblinking narrowed eyes spoke aggression. A light but audible growl moved through his throat in a gurgle so that only Brad would hear and not anyone else who'd think that a tipping point was reached and intervene. The actions got the buck to gulp and grab a 20 dollar bill which he gently put near Nick's paw that tapped the table and as he changed his composure to his usual one, he shrugged his shoulders and leaned away from the chair, while motioning with his head the direction to the door, which Brad happily took in an instant.

Nick eyed the buck, who had an unconfident gait, and his ears even managed to catch a few mumbles, "If I see you in Happy—" but instead of letting him ramble, Nick snapped his jaws and made the buck to sprint towards the door, thus his interest dropped and he moved it towards the mammal he was actually interested in interacting with, that being the actually-smiling doe who was trying not to laugh.

But she visibly couldn't hold herself anymore and giggled through a fruity voice, "Nickkk… you're an ass."

Nick sat on the chair where the buck used to be and retorted, "Compared to Machobun, I'm an angel..." –his nose began stinging as the floral scent was a bit too much for his heightened sense of smell- "And what's with this perfume, did he swim in it…" His focus moved towards Brad's unfinished salad, which he hadn't even started when Nick had crashed his plans, and then his eyes moved towards Judy in a meeting of her own but he kept the contact a bit longer than usual.

She shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes. "Sure, push it over… it's not like he'll be coming back."

Nick pushed the bowl of salad towards Judy and it stopped right next to hers. "I guess I ruined your date, Carrots. I'm such a _fox_ …" he apologized in a playful tone as well as mockingly snuggling some prejudice as he wanted a reaction from out of her, and there it was as her ears drooped and her head plopped into her propped paws in annoyance as well as concern.

"Don't talk like that! You know how I feel about this stuff…" –her eyes moved at the bowls for a few sad moments which got him to feel slightly remorseful about teasing her about that subject he knew she had been guilty of during their first meeting with each other- "It wasn't supposed to be a date… but I guess he had that in mind when we met yesterday" –her sadness turned to anger- "I can't believe he treated you like that… and that poor waitress as well!" Judy exclaimed, sounding taut and bodily acting impulsively.

He knew what would lighten up the mood, some more teasing, but in another kind that would get her thinking about something else. "And here I thought you just wanted a ride home. I mean I've heard about bunnies' appetites but se—" he didn't continue, as he saw her instant change in her lilac eyes that glowered at him, while her fork with which she had been eating was now pointed at him. The glowering sent some tingling around his skin, which got him to hide that feeling with a wide smirk as well as lean forward as to try and deconstruct her confidence.

"If you don't shut up, I'll force feed you salad. Got that?" she warned darkly and continued to eat from her meal shortly after.

But Nick didn't heed her warning and continued with his antics. "Jumping straight into the deep waters I see. If you're going to force feed me salad, I wonder what else you have planned f—"

Judy groaned in irritation and with the fork in paw, she jumped off her chair and headed towards Nick with glued ears to her back, while circling her shoulders forward. The great ire on her face meant one thing, she wasn't joking around and was about to do something he wouldn't like, so he tried to defuse the rather badly-developing situation, "Hey, _hey_! Not a word about this anymore from this innocent fox… _for now_ ," he mumbled the last part while waving his paws in front of himself, showing his surrender to the violent rabbit that surprisingly wasn't stopping until she reached the chair, tho having already entered his personal space, which was annoyingly getting him frustrated as the fork was visibly taunting his tingling fear.

In an instant motion, he saw and felt her grab his thigh and pull it out while the paw that was holding the fork headed towards his most praised jewel, his male dignity to which he yelped loudly and tried to cover it with his paws and other leg, but the fork was already way ahead and he yelled, "NO!" with closed eyes as the deadly silverware made contact with the desired destination in an audible scrunch. His body instantly jerked back and legs tried to scurry away, however she was holding him tight. But there was no pain, just the feeling of her warm paw near his inner thigh that was now trying to push her away but without any results.

Was that the surge of adrenaline holding him from dying from anguish? Had he died? The test for life was made when his eyes opened and it seemed that she had missed her mark as the fork was just slightly off the prize, his jerking back having had no effect as he had already been hugging the chair's backside. But her paw was very close to there and was almost touching him, which got him to feel that exciting itchiness he remembered from their awkward night, a tingle that got him to gulp and smile nervously at her but her hard scowl was unwavering and she wasn't moving away.

It was as if she was taunting him to make another joke about sex, taunting him to give her a reason to finish what she had started which he wasn't desiring even one bit but his tongue was just trying to do so because that was how he coped with stuff that showed his true emotions. And at this very moment, that emotion was fear. "I… Yo—…" Her paw moved inwardly and pushed his paws that were covering his groin, thus getting his member to squeeze against his belly while the excitement was getting it to creep up slowly, something he didn't want her to see thus he clamped his damn muzzle shut.

After a few more seconds of glaring, she removed the fork with some strain, leaving 4 slightly-deep holes on the sturdy wood, and she pushed his leg, that had been held hostage, back from where she had grabbed it, to which he smiled awkwardly and removed one of his paws as now it could be possible to hide his misplaced sensuality easier than a few moments ago.

"Because you're an irritating fox, you're going to eat a carrot to show me how sorry you are," she ordered and reached for the buck's salad while his eyes remained widely opened at her ability to actually make him speechless.

"Is this some kind of kink of yours, watching foxes eat carrots, Carrots?" Nick accidently teased with a snort and Judy looked at him very stonily as she fumbled with the fork in paw. But then she slightly smiled, just like that.

"Two carrots." Her smile grew even bigger while his nervous frown did the same, to which he exhaled slowly and put his head on his paw for support. There was no need to play along and do as he was told to but if he could continue with his badgering and be reprimanded as such, why shouldn't he? Well, maybe he shouldn't overdo it because she had made her point clear and he didn't want anything piercing any part of his body, especially his slick flesh of sensations.

With a nod, which got her to happily return to her old spot, he grabbed a carrot from the bowl with his fingers and began inspecting it with a sullen expression. Shortly after his thorough examination, it was returned and he began moving it around the dish with his claw. After he was satisfied, he pierced the poor orange vegetable with his obsidian claw and threw it in his maw, starting to munch with loud slaps on purpose as to rile his hostile companion.

That was when he looked at her with anticipation as she had one of her eyebrows raised in visible disbelief that he wasn't actually repulsed, being a fox and all. "What? You thought that because I'm a fox I don't eat vegetabl—?

"N—" she tried to intervene but he wasn't stopping.

" _Tck-_ _tck_. And here I thought you wanted to show me who you truly were." Her already widened eyes did so even more while her paws waved in front of her erratically.

"W-wait… I didn't—" she tried to defend herself but he talked over her again.

"It doesn't matter, Fluff, the damage's already been done." He tried to seem very hurt and looked at her very gloomily but couldn't hold his smirk and chuckled, which got the grey doe to relax and exhale her stress with a disbelieving shake of her head. "I don't actually like carrots but the trick is to put them in vinegar… it always fixes the bad taste. I don't know how you can eat them raw tho, _ughh_ …"

Judy looked at him through lowered brows and quivering lips, while her voice had intoxicated itself with pity. " _Awww_ , the big _bad_ fox can't handle some raw carrots? You said that you were going to eat me but can't handle a few innocent vegies?"

He gave her an unbelieving look and snickered. "You know, you're a bit like Fin. You two would like each other… but maybe you both shouldn't ever be in one place or something bad might happen." Nick realized that the bad thing would be him getting beaten by both of them, thus he didn't specify what and held it for himself.

"Who's Fin?"

"The fox-like toddler you saw before you went Officer Carrots on me," he answered in his usual style and received a small grimace from her as he knew that it hadn't been a very pleasant memory, her having had tailed him around for quite some time. But the curiosity overtook her etched initials and she even stopped eating her piece.

"Why's he so small? When I heard his voice I even jumped a little from surprise." A small snort came about from Nick because that was how he had reacted as well, having had met Finnick in a less hospitable environment, which hadn't been healthy for his heart at all. At least a lesson was learned to not underestimate mammals no matter how they looked, especially their skills as the small fox had seen through Nick's con and had almost crippled him if it were not for Nick's silver tongue.

"Well, he fell in a barrel of toxic waste when he was young…" Nick disclosed with a straight face but as he saw the shock in Judy's terrified existence, he couldn't hold himself and guffawed with a slap against the table which clanked the dishes and got Judy to lightly twitch. "Seriously, did you actually believed what I just said?" But before she could respond he continued, "He's a fennec, it's normal for him to be so small. He's actually quite big for his species… and _maaaaybe_ a bit too strong, if you ask me."

"How did you two meet?" Judy asked but Nick seemed to have had enough of answering questions and only licked his nose in response without breaking his calm and calculating eye contact with her, while she anticipated his answer but as he just kept staring with a molding smirk, she finally asked with puzzlement, "What?"

"You managed to get me under your charm and got me to talk a bit tooo much… But now, it's your turn, Fluff," he retorted and started tapping his obsidian claws onto the table's surface to which she contorted her brows with a huff but then smirked and he knew that she had understood. He wasn't a mammal who would freely exchange information, the fee had to be paid with it being mutual as well, because that way he could have fun while talking, thus giving the other mammal more excitement when it was to be their turn.

"Okay, but first you need to finish what you started." She deadpanned with straight ears, her right one half-bent forward, while she was looking at the bowl in front of the red fox.

" _Ugh_ … kinky rabbits…" he groaned and quickly scooped the smallest carrot into his mouth as he wanted to keep the pace fast and not linger too much on the ticking silence. His sharp teeth did a good work on the poor vegetable after which the gulp sealed the unsavory deal, thus he put both his elbows on the table and plopped his head onto his propped paws, his eyes gazing directly at the focused doe before him.

"So, what do you want to know?" She asked and motioned to him to pass her the buck's salad as she had eaten hers already.

"Why did you run off the day before yesterday?"

Her whole body froze with a bump on her cheek where some salad had been chewed until he had asked a very unexpected for her question. Her eyes moved away as she gulped the food and fiddled with the fork in her slightly quirky paws. But then, just like that, she recollected herself and met his gaze with confidence. "Like I said then, I was going to be late for work."

He didn't believe her, as he could clearly see the hesitance all around her body which was backstabbing all her spoken words when carried with misinformation as she seemed to be a mammal who didn't like to lie, yet he knew that it wouldn't be a good idea of pressing too hard or she could close herself off and shrug him off, thus exhaled sharply and made a circle with his claws on the sturdy table. "And were you late for work?"

"I arrived at the PD on time," she answered fast and sharp but that didn't seem to do the trick, as the doubtful fox was moving his jaw left and right while grinning, creating a grinding noise with his teeth which was supposed to rile her ears up and visibly, it was keeping them down.

" _Mmmm_ , what about work, got there on time?"

There was hesitation, there was thinking and he was very curious what she would do. Would she lie to him, tell the truth, answer plainly or just remain silent. So many possibilities, only one choice of action, it was greatly amusing because it wasn't still easy for him to read her, not yet. "I can't talk to a civilian about police work," she closed the topic and Nick looked at her quizzically but as he understood, a heartful chuckle blasted through his lips because the bunny before him was no ordinary mammal who would take the bait easily, no-no, she could see through his attempts. But that didn't mean that she wouldn't ever fall for any of his tricks, that was highly unlikely even if he did it to himself, unknowingly.

There was something she was hiding and he was going to find out about it. "So you were late but it seems you don't want to tell me what happened after that. Don't worry, I won't take it personally," he yielded and licked his lips while Judy seemed to be caressing one of her black-tipped ears. _I'll find out, Fluff, either you or someone else will accidently say something._

He figured to change the subject, seeing that she had locked herself in and didn't want to talk further about the topic of being late for work. "So… How did you meet Mr. Badass, who almost soiled his shiny pants?"

That seemed to do the trick and pull her out of her stupor as she smiled and giggled lightly. "At the park after I finished jogging. He didn't seem so bad then… he didn't seem bad before you came…" she finished gloomily with her last words sounding somewhat hesitant as to their true meaning.

Nick caught her downcast state and tried to reassure her that this was normal and that it wasn't her fault. "Hey, the city's full with two-faced mammals" -he smiled sadly- " _hey_ , I'm one of them as well! You never know who's who until, well… until they show you their true colors."

She seemed to accept his explanation and relaxed her shoulders as her paws rubbed into one another. "I understand… but you aren't hateful. This mammal was… his words and tone was so malicious… He sounded like Duke for a moment… until he soiled his pants," she added with a chuckle and he really liked it when she smiled, it somehow was disarming his guard that was needed to be kept up at all times, yet he knew the power of the smile and its capabilities of getting mammals to trust him as it made him seem less hostile. But Judy wasn't doing it because of any of that as she was genuine about her emotions, while he seemed to be in the same pond like her, quite surprisingly.

He wanted to do the same as well but when she mentioned Duke, his demeanor changed, and he didn't feel content to joke about that. "Yea, they're slightly alike… The only difference is after Duke soils his pants and you turn your back on him, he'll either cut your throat… or shoot you…" he voiced in a serious and harsh tone, which attracted Judy's utmost attention that was shown by her ears that sprung high and tall, a sight that was tugging on the corner of his lips. Her interest was visibly peeked because her nose had just twitched and her head was slightly bouncing from her recently-induced state of energizing disclosure.

" _Soooo_ … you do know something, don't you, Nick?" she actually asked in a sultry tone while her head slightly moved to the side with her narrowed eyes, which came as a confidence-tugging surprise for Nick, who managed to get himself in rails with a grin and a short laugh.

"Oh, my! Are you trying seduce me, Miss. Hopps?" he asked with a fake accent, getting Judy to roll her eyes as she snorted while she didn't seem phased by his comment.

"C'mon! It doesn't matter what, just tell me anything!" her plead was carried so enthusiastically, filled with such passion, while her eyes lightly glistered under the light of the cozy café as she directly looked at him with her bent to the side ears and twitching nose that had been made as such due to the excitement she was visibly in. She had actually managed to get him to want to tell her more because of her endless moxie that seemed to have magical powers upon her victims, him being one of them currently.

The sight of her was entrancing and he began asking himself about how it was possible for such a cute little bunny to be so cunning and physical at the same time as she wasn't just throwing the hook randomly at any direction, there was a goal in her mind and that goal had been made clear the other night, she wanted more information for the criminal underworld and more specifically about Thane and Duke. She wasn't as innocent and naïve as he thought she was because there were tricks up her sleeves as well, one of them being her overwhelming cuteness and natural ability to make mammals feel at ease while in her presence.

Maybe she could manage to pull through in where she was, while being who she wanted to be, maybe it was possible if she received the proper guidance that definitely wouldn't be to her tastes, yet would it hurt to try? It would if she would get him entangled in messes of her own doing and that idea was making him nervous as he liked his care-free life he had imposed on himself after all those nerves and paranoias during his life in Happytown and the ones of forsaken illegalities. The always-thumping heart, the fearful nights and carefully-planned routes as to not get caught by mammals who'd do you wrong.

That was going to be part of her own life soon and that got him to feel that same feeling he could remember from yesterday, that feeling of compassion and actual want to lend a paw so that the road before her wouldn't be as bumpy as his was. After all, some tips and mild information wouldn't hurt him in any way, while he could ask her to keep her sources for herself as to not get him in trouble, because she didn't seem like a mammal who would break her word, at least she hadn't shown such a side of her yet. Tho, there was always that possibility, always that risk.

He decided to start in style, "Well…" –her head leaned forwards while her eyes widened in great expectancy- "there was this one time when my muzzle got stuck in a very large glass" –her ears instantly fell and she opened her paws as if she was asking ' _what the hell are you taking about?'_ but he didn't stop there- "I mean, it can sometimes happen but I had to brea—"

"Not anything about anything!"

"So nothing?"

"Any— no! Wai... _Arghh_!" she growled very adorably and gave him the glare which meant one thing: _stop_.

"Alright, alright!" he opened his paws and waved them in surrender with an awkward smile as the bunny before him was beginning to fume from having been made to stumble on her words and thoughts. "You really a bunny?" Her fingers drummed the table in annoyance without a single sound escaping her tightly-shut mouth to which Nick actually felt jittery as the fork was very close to that same paw, thus, not seeing a point to continue to joke on her behalf and not finding any real danger in telling her what he had chosen carefully, he finished, "I promise to tell you but somewhere private, 'kay?" Her ire fell and as she looked around herself, a nod came about with a small smile as she leaned against her chair at last.

Nick's ears flicked as he sensed the faint sounds of footsteps on the planked floor with the waitress coming into view shortly after with her swaying spotted tail. She collected the empty utensils from the table and asked jollily if there was going to be something else to which Nick handed her the money the buck had left on the table and added, "Six blueberry muffins, rest is for you, darling" The waitress received a warm wink from him while his lips curled into a confident smirk, which got her to lower her chin slightly with a smile and probably blush while the dishes moved closer to her body as she headed towards what he had requested.

His eyes followed her from behind as she gained distance from their table and he thought that she did look pretty good even if she was from species different from his own, after all, he was open-minded and the swaying of her hips was getting him to keep the gaze of interest. But all was broken when he heard the panicked voice of his recent association, that being the grey rabbit who was looking at him in shock and great visible anxiety.

"Wait, Nick! I don't want to use that horrid buck's money! I can pay for myself!" she exclaimed and almost jumped off her spot as to probably chase after the waitress who was now somewhere unknown. Well, that was probably why she hadn't done so.

He couldn't understand where that had come from and why she even cared if they used Brad's admirable charity which he was so honored to give, a charity that was very appreciated and welcomed to Nick, not that he needed it but the buck had served himself what he deserved. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Fluff. Our very good friend Brad gave me the money. And because I am generous, I'll treat you as well as myself. Which means that it's my money," he explained and licked his lips from the thoughts of the juicily-hot blueberry muffins which he was going to devour, as if it were the last day on Earth, in a minute.

Her mouth tried to object but his paw went up and his own raced through the air, "Too late, the deed's been done. You can fall in despair later for getting a free meal," he mocked her and laughed but she wasn't jumping the train like him as her arms crossed and a very nasty glower was conjured at his being. Her behavior was strangely interesting. "Cheer up, my optimistic bunny, you know what? I'll even give you one of my muffins, what say you?" But nothing was returned from her side and she just kept glaring at him which started to look slightly troubling, so he tried to distract himself with anything else but her, out of the blue, hostility.

His eyes scanned the surrounding once again which had filled with more mammals than there were when he had entered. The day was going to soon progress to noon and that was why maybe mammals were crowding around, lunch breaks and all. There was something that was close to one wall near their shared table, something like a poster with uninviting details which were ones of a heavy assault rifle that had pierced a steel helmet with its bayonet. The helmet was looking old but the rifle was not due to its scope and cables attached to it, while there was this text, text that read ' _Let's take the fight to them!_ ' ' _Buy war bonds!_ '.

It wasn't hard for Nick to comprehend what that was as propaganda wasn't something new in his crazy life he had lived, this being a good example of why he had chosen not to pay his taxes in the first place. There was no point in joining conflict other than the point of personal gains as well as benefits, and certainly not the end of misery and war.

But his nose detected an aroma which melted his brain cells in pleasure and got his head to turn at the waitress who was carrying a carton bag to their table, a sight which got his reality in rails and the issue with the war in the west dissipated for a time not now. The leopard was smiling widely as she put the steamy bag on top the table after which she bind them both a warm farewell and left, while Judy had changed into a very convincing fakeness of animation, which got Nick to feel a bit hotter as she was acting rather peculiarly-chilling.

As the waitress left, Nick decided to try and lighten the bunny's mood because it was starting to get him to feel quite uncomfortable, thus the drive came to want to do something about that cross feeling, so he looked at her cold glare, meeting her darkened lilacs and lifted the hot bag off the table. "Muffins?"

To which she only simply answered without emotion, "Let's go." Her body slid of the chair as she headed towards the exit, while Nick tried ways of finding out what he had done to make her feel to act like this with him. Yea, he had been a jerk when they had met but they had put that behind themselves as he had with the fox repellent. Yet, had they actually put it all behind? That was an interesting question he hadn't thought about but in order to do so, he had to start moving if he were not to lose sight of the angry bunny who was now close to the exit without even looking behind her if he was following.

His legs managed to carry him before the door had fully closed as he sneaked in between at the last second which could've costed him a lot of pain on the end of his tail, if he hadn't pulled it with his paws, a trick learned after some dissatisfactory experiences. Judy was some distance away which got him to frown at her unfriendly behavior as she hadn't even given him the reason. She was acting if they didn't know each other and nothing was holding him back from just walking away and going on to his day, nothing at all. He hesitated if he should just go back when something nagged him inside his head to understand what had just transpired, something strange and crazily-unintelligible.

The sudden urge to unravel the odd mystery got his feet to move forward in quick motions and he managed to get by her side, while passing by some mammals along the way, yet she didn't even acknowledge his presence as if he weren't there, which got him to try and get her attention by being annoying, " _Soooo_ … Where we going?" he asked but she kept as she was which made him to glower and to fill with confidence as to excavate the problem that was making her act like that, so he stepped in front of her as he rotated himself around and stopped abruptly, to which she bumped into him hard and recoiled back in visible surprise, yet her anger came back.

She tried to sidestep past him but to no avail, as he countered her attempts until she stopped and drilled her eyes at him with crossed arms and a hyper-active leg. "What's your problem?" he pressed on but she didn't do nor said anything, just kept glaring, more like outright glowering at him with an occasionally flicking nose and hard exhales. Nick had had enough and tried a different approach as his patience was starting to get thinner and thinner, "If you're going to act like this… I don't feel like telling you about our mutual _friend_ , Fluff," he stated and immediately got a reaction from Judy, which was in the form of slumping shoulders and her wrinkles dissipating into shock.

"But you promised!" she shouted loudly and pointed a finger towards him, yet that didn't phase him and it was now his time to take the defense by putting his paws in his pockets as if he was disinterested in what she was to say.

"I did but not to the mammal that was ignoring me 'till now." But she didn't retaliate, only turned her back towards him and grumbled something which he didn't understand. What was happening in that mind of hers? "Just tell me, what's the problem?!" That was when she turned to face him again with determination and her paw lunged at his as she grabbed it with a pull, and guided him close to one of the buildings near them. It seemed that she was going to give him his answer at last, and the mammals walking around didn't need to hear it as it was only between the two of them. She was a pretty smart bunny.

"You…" she hissed and looked around which got him to smirk but forced himself not to. "I told you not to use that dis—… _repulsive_ buck's money, but you did so anyway!" –his tongue tried to get him to talk but he clamped his muzzle shut- "You didn't respect my choice and made a decision without even asking me first!..." –her determined ears fell and her paws hugged her middle- "I know it's not a big of a deal but that's what I hate most, Nick… You must understand, mammals have tried to pull me away from my goals by making decisions for me without my knowledge…

She visibly hesitated as she played with the toes of her foot by making circles on the stone slabs. "Like my parents… and that just infuriates me!" –she took a step forward and, for a moment, Nick almost took one away from her but steeled his nerves and stood firm- "Just don't do that again, _please_! I know it may seem strange… but that is who I am, just…" Judy couldn't finish and looked at her feet, while Nick's mind was piecing the puzzle which's pieces had just been delivered: freshly-steamy and oddly interesting.

It was her right to fight for herself and what she believed in, which instilled even more admiration in him for her whole being as more seemed to have resurfaced of what she had gone through to become who she was, yet there was more, there was always more. Not only did she dislike prejudice, she hated being controlled, while being her own boss seemed to be embedded into her cells as she had just tried to get him to understand just that, which wasn't directly said but was implied heavily. Nevertheless, he couldn't promise her such a thing because it was beyond him what the world would serve but at least he could tell her that and not hide behind a curtain like usually.

The anxiety around her was suffocating as she was now staring at him and probably thinking that she must've sounded like a lunatic but that was far from the truth, more like an established individual, thus he took a knee in front of her so he could look directly at her, which served as an enormous surprise for the grey bunny. "Look, I didn't know… I'll try not to repeat this… but no promises, keep it in mind" –her eyes trailed away as if he had just insulted her but came back quickly with the same undivided attention, she had understood- "yet the line was crossed, I understand. So I'll say I'm sorry, even if it probably doesn't mean much from a mammal like me," Nick apologized and smiled as he pulled out a steaming blueberry muffin from the bag.

"Muffin?" he asked again and reached with his paw towards Judy who stared at the brain-tickling treat but took it slowly with a sad smile.

"Thanks…" –her questionable eyes narrowed on his- "What do you mean a mammal like you? You aren't a bad mammal, stop trying to seem like one!" she shot and chewed off a hefty piece from the muffin that had been in the form of her taking out her frustration onto the poor piece of bakery but that was when she froze and _mmmmmed_ as the heavenly-treat had definitely melted her tongue.

"Compared to you, I am. I've done bad things and I don't hide that fact."

Mouth still full, she retaliated through chews and small pieces that flew at Nick's shirt, "I've _dwone_ _bawd twhings thwat_ …" –an angry huff escaped her little nose and she gulped- " Everyone has! I'm not proud of mine either! What's your worst?" she probed extremely hard and very unexpectedly which had gotten him to a state of disability to talk but he managed to overcome those feelings and stood up. This mammal had interesting abilities and it looked as if she didn't even need to plan what to say, as if it was all coming from the heart as well as naturally. That was why it was so amazing and crippling to his personality of isolation and unwillingness to share.

He chuckled with hidden nervousness and extended his pointer finger with a swaying motion that expressed his reluctance to answer that specific, which carried an extremely serious subject that could even get him in trouble as she was a cop, not just some cashier in the local shop. "One step at a time... Now, where're we going?" A light jerk on the corner of her lip got him to understand that she was probably adoring his abilities to steer away from unwanted subjects, and as she smiled and ate the rest of the mind-numbing bakery, he was dead-sure.

She swallowed the last pieces of tastiness and removed the crumbs around her mouth, after which she coughed with a glanced at Nick's awaiting expression and just began walking, saying the required information just as she passed by him, "My apartment, let's go." Her words were… mildly put: unexpected… they were bizzarely-insane as a normal mammal would never let another, who had used their trust in order for personal gain, in their home, let alone a fox. But she had decided to do just that, against everything rational, against the norm of society.

His grin was going to sever his skin as he dashed and got to her side but forced himself to turn that maddening grin into just a curious and mischievous smile which was actually coming from his heart. "You keep surprising me. So fast, _whoaw_ … I'm actually getting nervous, _phew_ ," he quipped and started pulling his Hawaiian shirt's top as to vent some supposed heat out while swaying his tail around as if in excitement to which she scowled at his inappropriate suggestion of his referral and, as his eyes moved in front of him so he wouldn't collide with a random mammal, he felt strong force to hit him at the hips and lose his foxy balance.

And that was when what he didn't want to happen happened, as he collided with a bulky ram head on, his muzzle hitting the mammal's thick horns and getting Nick to jump aside agilely while stinging bounced around his nose where the impact had taken form. "The fuck's your problem, damn stupid fox?!" yelled the ram and clenched his fists from anger with visible traces of desire to get into a confrontation, which Nick wasn't keen on finding himself into, thus searched for an exit, that being his legs walking backwards and paws in the air while his guilty smile tried to disarm the short-tempered hothead.

"Excuse me, Mister, got carried away and didn't mean anything by this. Just an accident," Nick apologized without any hits of sarcasm or hidden mockery and turned around swiftly as he chased after the vicious bunny who was waiting way ahead with a nastily-appropriate smirk, and his ears flicked at her giggles while there were no loud steps behind him or retorts which meant that the ram had dropped it, thankfully.

As he got close to her, he delivered in a snigger, "You know, you're one mean bunny. I mean Fin's quite scary but he ain't as witty as you are." Judy huffed with a light snort as her ears straightened and resumed her walk with Nick catching on shortly after, while thinking why she had chosen to let him so much into her life and if she had planned something, something he couldn't put a word to. "So, aren't you afraid that I may try and steal something from your humble home?" Nick kept on trying to get under her skin because, well because he was Nick and the easiest way to get a mammal to accidently say something was to rile them up.

"Not really," she retorted instantly and blinked at him, giving him a wink and added, "You aren't that dumb to do such a thing. That'd be like finally giving me a reason to arrest you, Slick."

"Touché," he surrendered and accepted his defeat but not before ruffling the fur on top of her head which got her to slowly stop with widened eyes at the contact she was definitely not expecting, and he knew that many mammals would've definitely done bad things to him or called the cops. Well, she was a cop, and yet she wasn't like most mammals and he felt some kind of a close connection with her even if it was extremely early for his attachment to root itself, yet here he was, behaving like this with a mammal who he knew for less than a day. She didn't disappoint when he felt a discomforting shove in the ribs which got him to pull back with a chuckle and find traces of her own amusement which were notable on her scowl as she fixed the disgruntled fur.

The trek wasn't that long but there were some problematic instances where crowds would get too thick so that both of them had to jump around in order to not get killed by immense pressure, which would've been pathetically humiliating if that had happened. The sun was high up in the sky and it was even starting to get a bit hotter for Nick who was trying not to pant, even if it was natural of him to do so, it was just that such ways of comfort showed his teeth and that usually wasn't appreciated by mammals around him, not Judy tho, he didn't believe she would care even one bit.

He had observed something interesting when being in front of her as they were piercing the thick mass of mammals when his tail would sway around for balance and his eyes would glance back as to see if she was behind him, which she most definitely always was but he had managed to catch her eyes checking him out on several occasions, and when she'd see his eyes narrowed on hers, she'd glance away or try to fake looking around herself. She couldn't resist the temptation of his fluffy appendage, or was it his butt? There were always more desirable traits, yet who was he to say what she was to like, thus he made the decision to save these moments for some time later down the road as a tool of getting her cheeks red.

They were now in an area which was very familiar to him as he used to frequently roam around in the past when younger, it was a zone where conditions were a bit worse than the rest of the Savanna as the buildings were old and some of them unrepaired since they were originally constructed as the owners were either missing or didn't want to be bothered, which didn't mean that taxes didn't accumulate but they just probably didn't give a crap. At least the government's institutions were doings their jobs as the sidewalks and roads were clean and repaired but the contrast between kept and unkempt was too visible for his eyes which got him to sigh in mild annoyance.

It was always interesting tho how the buildings had been created to accommodate all as the staircases, those that were big, had apartments actually underneath them for smaller mammals but he couldn't see the practicality as there'd always be earthquakes for those below when big mammals would climb up and down, yet that was why the rent was way lower than that in the richer parts of the district, that was why mammals came here most. There were rents even lower than these but they were at an area that didn't have a good reputation in the terms of safety and order, yet it wasn't that bad once you got used to living there, not that he wanted to anymore as he didn't even want to be around other mammals in the first place.

Judy suddenly crossed in front of his path, bumping into him with her shoulder and turning around with a tongue out as if to mock his sloppiness and disability to see her mischievousness coming, which got him to smile with slightly closed eyes as she was starting to warm up on him quite a lot and the attention was actually appreciated. But as his gaze moved up from the stairs she had begun climbing, he saw the abbreviation of the place which he knew very well, that being ' _Grand Pangolin Arms_ ' where conditions weren't even remotely good for living but sufficed, nevertheless.

But why had she chosen to live here of all the other places as this one probably still hadn't fixed the front door's lock, so anyone could just walk in and do unimaginable things in the corridors of broken lights. His attention was grabbed when he heard Judy's voice to call him and his eyes leveled with hers, and he saw her having stopped in the middle of the stairwell with her head turned towards him, her whole backside visible to his eyes which instantly trailed off at her curvy thighs and butt, for which he almost made a remark if it were not for his prideful nature to be one step ahead of the game. Why was this bunny catching his gazes as such… She didn't have long claws or sharp teeth, nor a long tail or tall body…

Yet she had this short teardrop-like tail which would wiggle when she was excited, she had these long ears which would exhibit her moods and thoughts while her pink nose would twitch in such a cute manner that made his skin to crawl in exhilarating shivers. Her body was extremely healthy while her spirit even more as she had shown him numerous times throughout their short period of sharing their time together. Yea, her head was only reaching his shoulders but she was one tough rabbit, given the fact that she was a doe as well, yet she had broken nature's expectations and persevered, as she was a cop, at that in the most prestigious establishment in Zootopia itself.

If he didn't know her and had seen her on the streets giving tickets to mammals on parking meters, he would've said that she was just another bunny without anything interesting in store, even bland and unattractive. But now, now the link he had made yesterday had given him new insight as he could see her gray fur as unique and the silver one from her muzzle towards her chest as enticing, while the feminine aspects in terms of her thinner eyebrows and longer lashes and narrower waist were getting him to actually feel something else which he didn't like one bit.

Such thoughts were inappropriate as well as misplaced because he didn't want to have anything like that with her, not because she was a bunny or, all in all prey, that she wasn't good enough but because he didn't want to have such a relationship with anyone at all due to his past heartbreak he had forced upon himself and his mate which was required by the surroundings around them.

He shook his head to flush out the suggestive thoughts out his head and jogged up the stairs after the bunny who had now opened the big door of the old flat and as they entered in the dimly light place which smelled like stale air, Nick exclaimed from behind her, " _Whoaw_ , Fluff! You're seriously living here? It may be cheap but there are way better places than… _this_!" his paws made a motion around him as to show what he was talking about without the need of going into detail as the reception's desk had cracks all around with cobwebs trailing from the ceiling, that was covered with chipping lime, and onto the surface of the furniture which consisted of a few chairs and an old couch which's cushions were sticking out from slices in the material.

Water was dripping close to the stairs where Judy was headed and he swore that he saw roaches underneath one of the abandoned carton boxes close to the desk, which got his fur to electrify and his legs to carry him fast behind Judy as he hated those little monsters with antennas. There weren't such bloodthirsty beasts when he last was living here, the reception actually had a mammal who would at least act as a deterrent to mammals without any self-conscious. The floor wouldn't have bushes of dust rolling around from the disturbed air and there weren't any _tarantulas_ waiting on the edges of the room for prey to be caught in their traps of stickiness.

"Because it was the cheapest," she repeated in a deep voice, mimicking him. "And because it's close to the PD… And it's not that bad!" she finished confidently with a flick of her tail which grabbed his eyes for a mere moment but he moved them away as his pants didn't feel loose enough for him to let such appetites roam free without the chance of making a fool of himself, while the idea of something crawling around his back got him to even race ahead of the fast rabbit who _heyed_ at him and tried to audibly keep up the creaking stairs.

He was to continue towards the 3rd floor if he hadn't heard her call him to stop, which he did with an awkward smile while trying to figure something out that would hide the fact that he was terrified of big insects. But as she started at him, a snort escaped her lips and she shook her head in disbelief, probably thinking that he was joking around as she had in front of the place, which got his heartbeat to lower and breaths to feel less searing through his lungs.

This hallway was so familiar, it hadn't changed much but the old wallpapers were even darker with their previous contents having faded into the endless realm of time, while visible dust was around the corner of the walls where mammals wouldn't usually walk, thus a trail in the middle hat taken shape in brighter brownish color. They got to the desired door and Judy began fumbling with her keys she took out from her pocket, while Nick's eyes widened at the crazy coincidence because the door he was looking at had been the exact same he had lived behind in the past. Yea, it was the same one as the metallic label above showed number 23, a label having withstood the test of time and still holding onto the wall of old.

That got him to chuckle to himself and put one paw against the edge of the frame while leaning closer to Judy who had just put the key inside the lock but had stopped when she sensed his presence to come closer to her. "Huh, what're the odds… I used to live here in the past as well… I can pro—" Yelling from next door to Judy's apartment managed to get both of them to stop what they were doing, a yelling that was familiar to Nick and definitely annoyingly-irritating to Judy. Tho he didn't remember the place having such _accommodations,_ the voices were ringing hard bells around his head, but from where… "Who's that?" Nick asked from curiosity and headed towards the origin of distortion.

The cacophony was sneaking out from apartment 24 which was exactly next to Judy's and as he neared it, Judy's alarmed voice reached his meaty ears, "That's… Hey, Nick, where're yo—" but he knocked on the door with his knuckles and saw from his peripheral Judy's attempt of grabbing him by the shirt but she stopped with ears falling instantly and stared at him with a twitching nose as if he had done the unthinkable, which was slightly confusing but there was not time to muse about it as the lock clicked and the door opened with a view of an angry-looking gemsbok in casual wear.

There was no time to even introduce himself as the mammal objected his attempt of social engagement, "We ain't buying what you're selling!" His hoofs forced the door to close but Nick didn't like that at all because he had been considered as an annoying salesmammal, who he most definitely wasn't, at least at that very moment. His mouth twitched in discontent which wouldn't have happened if he was really what they thought he was, yet why was he getting that feeling. Weren't mammals straying away from him because he was a fox? Wasn't it the same?

His foot got into the almost-closed door's way and blocked its advance that slightly hurt but not enough for him to pull away. "I'm not selling anything, don't worry!"

"We ain't selling what you're buying either!" the gemsbok now yelled from behind the nearly-shut door, which actually made Nick to snort a bit in annoyance as well as amusement from the witty retort.

"Look, buddy, just want to talk. I don't want your money. Would you open, please?" Silence drowned the corridor and Nick glanced at Judy who motioned at him to just let it go, through a roll of her eyes, and he was to do just that as things seemed to have crashed, until the door opened and the neighbor leaned against the aged frame.

"So my money's ain't good enough for you, that it, foxy?" The words got his tail to go lower but he didn't detect the note of malice or hate, just that same angry and unchanged pitch of disinterest and indignation, which was perfect by him to continue.

"Mind your lang—" Judy began but Nick stopped her by waving a paw in front of her and glancing at her with a ' _don't worry_ ' tilt forward of his head.

"As I was saying… name's Nick and this here" –he made a gesture towards Judy who was thumping the floor with her arms crossed - "is Judy, your neighbor? Ring any bells?" He asked with a charming tone which got the angry gemsbok to look to his side, and visibly register the unamused bunny in the corridor which opened his eyes.

"Ey, bunny, you ain't smelling like shit no more!" the gemsbok blurted with a humorous voice, and Judy froze before she glanced at Nick uneasily, while he tried to react in an appropriate way as his mind now had a piece of the puzzle, which got him to grin mischievously at her worried-self but instead of starting the torture, he decided to not do it in front of others as that wouldn't be fun for her, not that the personal would be either but less humiliating and more in a playful manner just between them.

So he turned his head towards the neighbor and answered for her, "No, no she doesn't. What did you say your name was?" His claws were retracted and he reached with his free paw towards the gemsbok, his other still holding the half-full bag of delicious treats.

There was no surprise when the horned mammal took it, which meant that he wasn't prejudiced at all, just the way he talked. "Pronk... So, bunny, this here your new friend?"

Nick's eyes caught her bashfulness in the form of removing imaginary fur from her clothes. "Yea…" was the only thing she uttered with a very shy expression but it definitely wasn't because of him, that behavior had sprung from Pronk's previous words.

Finding out his name, Nick's brain instantly found the missing link in the chain which got him slightly excited, and his tail tried to wag, thus successfully doing so with the attraction of the doe's eyes but he forced it to stop. "Pronk? You haven't by any chance, on Friday morning, called the MNN and talked about the conflict in Apenine?"

Pronk touched his narrow horns in confusion and his eyes strayed away from them for a bit. " _Ughmm_ … N—" –his hoof fell from his chin in a jolt of surprise which created a draw of smile- "Yea, yea! You heard me? That damn host cut me off…" -his hoof rubbed the side of his ribs- "Don't know why…"

Nick snickered at the gemsbok's visible ignorance and mentioned, "Well, you did yell quite a lot…"

The words snapped the mammal in front and changed his expression to a very sullen one. "Yelling?! I don't yell—"

But just as he was about to say his piece, exactly what was being talked about exploded from inside the big room, " _Close the damn door! Stop wasting money, IDIOT!_ "

"They ain't selling, stop yelling!"

" _We ain't buying either!_ "

"That's what I said!"

" _Who's it then?_ "

"The bunny neighbor!"

" _Let her in then, and shut up!_ "

"You shut up!"

The sight was entertaining as hell with Judy having a paw over her face while Nick tried to keep his smile stable from breaking into laughter, as he was extremely amused by what he was seeing or more precisely: hearing. He leaned close to the exasperated doe and whispered, "Lovely couple you got there, the nights must be quite fun."

She huffed dolefully and mockingly returned, "Yea… fun…"

"Come in, we got a few minutes before we go anyway." Pronk left the door and went further inside the room and out of view. Nick was going to follow suit but he felt contact at his paw, which got his smile to plummet, and his head to turn at Judy who pulled him back lightly and gestured with her head that she didn't want to but that wasn't going to cut it.

His muzzle moved closer to her side and he whispered, "Shitty day, _huh_?" She went rigid without even breathing to which he decided to give her the chance to not tell him yet, "Hop in." Her head moved away from his warm gaze but he touched her paw that was still holding him, with his fingers, to which she glanced at him in mild confusion and he raised his eyebrows as to send her the unspoken question. A sigh moved through the air and she entered the room, their touch now severing and getting him to feel the warmth dissipating. Why had he just done that? It didn't matter… So, he entered the room and closed the door with some delicate stress, as it wasn't meant for a mammal of his size.

The room was pretty big and didn't seem to be like the one he remembered living in, which was now Judy's. The walls had a fresh light-brown color with a white ceiling; dark oak laminate with beading around the corners where it met the walls, while the furniture consisted of two beds that were close to a drawer that was under the window to the outside world.

They didn't seem to be at a bad place because the big LCD TV got his mouth to almost open, a TV that was facing the two beds, on one of which a kudu was laying and looking at his phone without amusement. That should've been Bucky if he remembered correctly from the ludicrous call at the station, yea it must've been him. He did have interesting spiraling horns but Nick's scrutinizations failed as the mammal's gaze instantly met his through the narrow gap of his lids, after which they went exactly at Judy without him even moving another muscle of his body.

"Ey bunny. Who's this? Your date or something?" The questioned sounded out of place and made both his brows to go different ways while his eyes scanned Judy's reaction which was one awkwardness as her nose was twitching as if she didn't know what to say, thus he took it upon himself to save her skin from the assholes of the big city.

"Oh but yes!" –his voice was dripping in sarcasm- "She stole my heart after I saw her putting a parking ticket onto my car. I argued that there were 2 minutes left but she didn't budge, it was so romantic…" His eyes could see the thankful smile on her lips as well as her quiet giggles that she was experiencing, while the kudu was staring at him with mild annoyance. He wasn't as dumb as he thought he'd be as he had visibly caught onto his antics.

Yet he snorted at last and stopped joking around. "Whatever… name's Bucky." Nick tried to go to the kudu but saw the declining motion of his head, thus stopped. "Heard who you are. But why're you here, foxy?" Bucky asked, which did sound a bit speciest just like Pronk but Nick understood from the kudu's body language that he didn't have a malicious intent, it seemed that that it was just the way they both behaved.

"Just wanted to check on my favourite bunny and on her favourite neighbours!" he gave his witty reply with opened paws high in the air while moving towards the table, where Judy was with a tilted head at him, as if she didn't believe him, which was completely understandable, after all, he wasn't going to tell _them_ why he was here, _pffttt_.

"How noble of you. Now come here you two," Pronk somewhat ordered, with a motion towards the chairs that weren't properly put under the table. They did just that and before taking a seat, Nick put the carton bag with the hot muffins near the wooden table's leg, where the sun's reach was still distant, which in turn got him to lose the freedom of choice as the bunny hopped onto the chair close to the door and was now smirkingly-staring at him, which got his lips to tug and his tail to swoosh around as he reached the one next to her and slightly pulled it closer to hers. As he sat, he angled his tail at her direction and it pushed against her leg which got her to uncomfortably move to the edge, a move that got his mind dancing in victory.

Pronk was sitting in front of them with huddled together eyebrows and three dishes that had the contents of vegetables, dishes that he passed to Nick and Judy while adding, "Sorry, foxy, no meat. That thickhead ate it all!"

"I don't eat meat you stupid bisnotch!" retorted Bucky with an angry glare.

"So it ate itself then? And who're you calling bisnotch!"

Nick didn't like where this was going, not really wanting to be in the middle of a quarrel and another yelling contest, so he looked with concern at Judy, who was visibly thinking the same thing, while her body was now even closer to his tail than before and eyes were drilling into his with the want to just leave but when he didn't give her the heads up, her paw reached for his puffy tail and yanked it lightly in a pleading manner, however he wanted to find out something first, so he motioned with two fingers at her as to give him some time, which didn't remove her gloominess but she didn't remove her paw from his tail as well, she actually put it on her leg and trapped it. Was she self-conscious about what she was doing right now? Didn't she know that she couldn't just touch or hold a fox's tail like that without a deeper meaning? He wanted to pull it away from her as he was starting to get uncomfortable but shrugged it off if it was to keep her to stay a few more minutes.

"Hey guys, let's calm down, 'kay? What's done's done… Pronk, you talked about the protests and that you were there when they happened, that true?"

Bucky huffed loudly in grumpiness and headed towards the door while giving Judy a flustered look because of what was on her lap but he didn't point it out. "I'm going to wait outside. You ain't there in 5 minutes, I'm leaving your skinny ass." And with that, the kudu opened the door and closed it with a slam, muttering, not very quietly, profanities until he was far away to not be heard anymore, thus silence befell the room and building floor.

Pronk seemed angry at the time his roommate exited the apartment but his expression relaxed afterwards, and he grabbed a cucumber from which he bit a pretty big chunk. "Yea... I was at the front of the crowds back then." The answer greatly initiated Nick's curiosity as he himself had been there but had decided to back off which was one of his best life choices as he was now here and not under 2 meters of earth or scattered around some river.

"What protests, what're you two talking about?" Judy asked and received his attention, as he didn't expect her of all mammals not to know about that insane event of Mammalia's history. But it seemed that it wasn't just him as Bucky was smirking at her while munching on a tomato.

"Score, bunny… damn…" Her paw was lost in Nicks tail and he could see where Bucky was heading while Judy visibly didn't have a single clue, so he decided to play it off without even acknowledging what she was doing as she would soon realize that herself without further embarrassment in front of her neighbor.

So he answered in turn as to annihilate the silence, "The ones 9 years ago. They called the day ' _Crimson Dusk_ ' but there was no media coverage… How old were you then, Fluff?"

"15… I guess," she answered with a raised eyebrow, while staring at him more than necessary.

"You were still a little carrot, Carrots… Odd you've never heard about it. They never mention it in your town? Nothing happened in Bunnyburrow at that time?" Her eyes trailed away from his while she pulled the tail closer to herself and that was beginning to take a toll on his nerves, while Pronk even sent him a wink through his suggestive and ' _I know'_ grin. At least he wasn't being an asshole and that gave Nick the chance to pull them off the crazy situation he had allowed himself to be put into.

"No… Not really… there was some gossip about the north conflict… but nothing about protests, no..." –her downcast eyes lowered towards her paws and that was when she saw what she had been doing, which got her eyes to slowly creep towards Nick's and her awkward smile to try and hide her movement, as removed the bushy appendage away from her thigh, while Nick remained composed and even grinned as to save his own hide which was getting warmer and warmer- " _Soooo_ , what happened that you both seemed so eager to talk about?" she asked quickly without even acknowledging what she had been doing and hiding her blush pretty well.

"Well, bunny, seems you don't know about the worst day in our modern history. And I had a front seat that day! Wanna know what I saw?" Pronk asked and Nick instantly nodded with energy, with Judy doing the same, but Pronk actually frowned which choked a few neurons inside Nick's foxy head as to what the hell had happened. But then Pronk moved his gaze towards the untouched dishes, a silent communication that Nick understood easily and got to business as to not insult their host but Judy hadn't been able to get a read-on as she was still motionless.

Nick pushed his tail against her leg to grab her attention and when he did, his eyebrows contorted in an attempt of getting her to start eating, which managed to go through as she sighed silently and reached for the fork.

That was when at last Pronk began, "So… we all gathered near the watering whole. Everything was organized neatly so there wouldn't be any injuries as you know, mammal differences. Everyone was given where to stay… big, small, in between and so damn on… At first it was peaceful, you know, music, shouting ' _resignation_ ' and other crap. Nobody came out of City Hall to confront us during the day and when it became dark, the riot police came. They were one scary mother fuckers. Biggest assholes I had ever seen…" His story was checking out as Nick himself had been there. But he wasn't mentioning the vandalism before that… why?

"They hadn't dispatched a single smaller mammal even when they bloody knew that in the crowd was filled with tiny protestors… they didn't fucking care…" –Pronk pinched the bridge of his nose and grabbed another vegie from his dish- "So they made a cordon all around us… and just stood like assholes. Nothing happened for an hour until… hmm… I remember a reindeer who had been near… he didn't look suspicious at the time… but then he threw a bottle at cordon… or was it a Molotov… well it was burning, that's what I'm saying." Nick could remember the flames, which's sounds the wind carried in the forms of yells and screams.

"I was damn shocked!... Just as I was about to grab his ass and twist his antlers in a bloody knot, another idiot did the same thing, a damn muskox! Then a polar bear of all mammals! Rocks, trash, Molotov's, it became a living hell and the tight cordon began moving forward. And I was in front the bloody crowd! There were this deafening screams, I couldn't hear my own damn thoughts…"

 _Huh, maybe that's why he yells. Doesn't know when he does it…_

"I knew it was run or damn die but the damn crowd wasn't budging from that damn fear! Some mammals even jumped in front of the crowd and slumped to their knees, they were surrendering! Wanna know what happened? Those scumbags bashed their skulls in and pepper sprayed them! Pieces of shits!" Nick hadn't seen the details from that distance but it was evident that it was happening because of the incredibly disgusting sounds which would sneak through the haunts of consternation. Judy's reaction was what he wanted to see as he slightly glanced at her because he didn't want her to see him, and she was widely frustrated as if she had never known this. A genuine reaction of shock which had electrified her fur and nose.

"So I'm like _fuck this_ and managed to get away with my life, don't you damn ask how!" –Pronk's hoof slapped the table which rattled the dishes and got both mammals in front of him to flinch while his finger pointed at them in darkness- " _Pfft_ … Good thing I was deaf then… should've been blind as well… After I got away I thought about that fucking reindeer and polar bear. Why were all those assholes arctic mammals? Because they were sent by the North I tell you! I've had my doubts but it all makes sense with this new conflict and those _native_ rebels in the Apenine!" Pronk finished talking as well as eating.

Yea… it had been pretty obvious but it never became officially recognized, just songs of urban legends and lies. That night had been a very rough one for him as a large chunk of his optimism had just crashed into thousands of pieces which he just couldn't pick up anymore. They were unsalvageable, they were lost and abandoned. It had been necessary for him to grow up and he was lucky for not being there, as he didn't believe that he would've had such luck like Pronk, even if the gemsbok had implied that he had done something really regrettable, yet he was alive. That's what mattered, right? All it mattered that they were here now, in between the comforts of society, which were created by the numerous of lies and cover-ups.

Something bad was brewing up again and it smelled even worse than the previous conflicts. A tomato entered his maw and sourness flew around his buds of taste which was kinda making him want to spit it out but the host wasn't looking to be in a very happy mood and that got Nick to continue chewing with dissatisfaction. A fact was a fact, things would get ugly like they had in the long run and he wasn't going to take any chances even if he had a safe refuge. This world had progressed too much since the last major war and that was what was greatly troubling… After all, from progression came regression… The tomato was sure a very bad one, probably had been ripened artificially… disgusting…

His eyes finally moved towards the bunny who had been haunting his thoughts of late and she was slowly chewing on something with her mouth closed, so well-mannered, it almost got his lips to tug up if it weren't for her expression of rattle that was plastered around her bulged eyes. She hadn't known about this, and how could've she, it was greatly concealed and mouth to mouth usually amounted to just talk, not to results as mammals would always add something to the story to make it more interesting, thus creating fiction rather than historical facts.

Participating in what was to come didn't sit well with him, probably before it would've been something like a goal of his to amount to something, to be who he was, but society had already labeled him as conning _a_ _fox_ and he didn't care anymore. More like he didn't want to care and thus he had to act if he were to have a chance for the future. Finnick had agreed to search for Uren but he wasn't going to go detective on her, just keeping out an eye which wasn't enough. But things were just starting, there was time and he could just continue as things were, with a glass of blueberry juice in his paw and the sun behind his back.

Pronk then looked at his phone and jumped in unwanted surprise. "Ehm, _shit_ … heh… wh— uhm… good talk guys… gotta go… had to be down like 15 minutes ago, _heh_ — god-dammit…" he pulled and managed to hastily grab all the dishes, amidst the move Nick almost lost grip of a pickle but his claw has managed to anchor it well. Had so much time really passed? That was pretty quick and it seemed to be appropriate to go and have fun with the doe who had already began the apartment but she seemed a bit down, her tail was hanging lower than usual and her shoulders were slumped. Huh, guess he'd have to ask her to know.

His butt slid off the wooden chair and he went after her trail that had the slight scent of worry but his mind was stabbing him with tiny needles for something that he couldn't remember.

Was he forgetting something?

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	7. Trust

**Chapter Seven**

 **Trust**

So many questions which would amount to the same state of disinformation and lack of greater vision, due to her having lived for so much time in Bunnyburrow. She knew that a lot of what was going on around her wasn't being reported and that there was always someone from above trying to control what can get out to the public. But such a bloody day being crushed under the iron foot of propaganda and deceit, what more was there that she didn't know, was she going to be part of those cordons sometime in the future when another wave of dissatisfaction was to hit the citizens. She couldn't do what those officers had done, not even if they had threatened to kill her.

She was outside in the middle of the corridor and was completely engulfed in this psychological process of realization which she was lucky to go through as the more you knew, the better choices you'd make in your life. But it wasn't sitting well with her stomach as it was tightening in slightly painful clenches which were raising her temperature, thus she let her ears go up as to cool herself down from the sudden surge of enriched blood.

" _Wahts uhp, Fliuff?_ " came a mumble from before her that got her eyes to go up and her mind to stop roaming the endless universe. It was Nick and he was chomping on that pickle he had murdered but what he had just said? She couldn't actually remember. So she decided to act as if she hadn't heard him and try to get some answers for her questions, which had filled her desk of work. Why was he looking around her with concern and what was he searching for… That fox and his smooth tail— Okay, she wasn't going to isolate herself in her mind anymore because she was feeling a blush to crawl around her cheeks.

She played with her fingers before asking, "Were you there when that happened, Nick?"

His sharp teeth finished off the poor pickle with a loud snap, which made her toes to curl in startle, as he gulped and returned at last with a normal voice that wasn't disgruntled, "Yep, but thank whatever mighty being is out there that I wasn't in the crowds, or I wouldn't probably be standing here today." He had been there, not in the epicenter, but there, nevertheless. But why was she feeling the need to ask him personal questions rather than ones about the events back then? Why were her thoughts going back to the chair and when she had realized that her paw was inside the ball of fluff…

She saw her opportunity to ask him her question and stop thinking about things she wasn't supposed to think about. "How old were you then?"

He looked at her with a smirk and tilted his head to the side. "You never ask a fox his age." His joke had been an attempt to phase her and she knew that, thus she took a step forward and got very close to the red vulpine, while looking directly at his eyes with erect black-tipped ears and small smile, therefor his confident façade began crumbling from her closeness to him. Well, her confidence was plummeting by every second but the results were keeping her stable after all.

" _C_ …" he mumbled something which even her ears didn't manage to catch, which got her head to slightly move forward, with her ears pointing towards the nervously-grinning fox.

"What? Didn't hear that!" She jumped in place from anxious anticipation.

His chuckle was oddly misplaced, yet the answer removed her doubtfulness, "19… just 19 back then."

She did the math in a matter of milliseconds and beamed, "So you're 28!" Her exclamation was met with his finger booping her nose, which got her to back up with both paws on the touched place as it twitched madly from the tickle and stunning move from his part. Her bemusement drained away from her fur and her eyes squinted at the smug fox who turned around as the door closed with a panicked gemsbok fumbling with his keys as he seemed to be in a lot of hurry. He hadn't even changed his clothes, or maybe he had prior to their arrival?

" _He's so going to yell when I find him… If I find him…_ " Pronk muttered strongly to himself as he hadn't addressed none of them, and when at last his keys managed to get into the lock, the click expressed satisfaction and he turned to face them at last. He scratched his narrowly-long horns and visibly was trying to form a coherent sentence as if he were to be careful with his wording while his eyes were more focused on Judy's confused ones.

"Listen… was fun talking to you guys but… I've heard how long you can go at it…" –Nick snorted which drew her gaze while she tried to understand what the hell was her neighbor talking about- "just get it over with before we come back…" His voice actually sounded pleading, and he didn't even wait for her to ask him what had he meant, as he ran towards the stairs and almost fell if he hadn't supported himself against the wall. The ruckus of a whole herd… How did he know tho that they were going to talk about Duke and Thane? She hadn't told anybody but Nick…

The snickering beside her turned into a guffaw and she couldn't keep her mouth closed anymore, furthermore she just stared at the air-sucking tod who was filling the gloomy corridor with positive energy while steaming the need in her to find out what she had missed on, which was just stabbing at her with anxiety.

But before she could ask him, he shouted with a paw on his mouth as if to amplify the noise, "Sure thing, buddy, don't sweat it!" and turned to look at her with his unwavering energy, which was sealed with a wink that didn't speak anything to her but continued muddling of her brain.

Thus she insisted quickly through one sharp exhale, "What did he mean by that, Nick?!" Why was she having this feeling that he wasn't going to be truthful about it, why did his smugness just increase as his tail was now even wagging.

"Oh you know, to have our _conversation_ before they come back. You know, the walls being thin and so on… big ears and other _things_ ," he explained in a voice that was nudging at her guts as to alarm her brain that there was a double meaning of what he was saying but she was so unsure that she didn't even try to say anything, thus her eyes rolled in dissatisfaction at his snickers, while she reached for her door and opened it hastily as she only had two keys, one for the apartment and the other acting as a spare one. The door to her humble home opened and she was met with air that now carried dusty particles with the scent of age. Her paws carried her to the window and the sound of city life shouldered in through the opened crack which sucked out the stale air.

"Hasn't changed…" Nick's lost voice found its way to her and she turned to look at him, his paws were in his pockets and eyes were scanning everything in the small room, until his emeralds reached for her and his lips curled down in contemplation as his teeth chewed on the side, while his eyes trailed elsewhere for a moment. That was when she went to the door and closed it, as he had been a stubborn fox to do so himself, thus closing it with a strained click as the key didn't want to go with the motion on the first try, nonetheless she had locked it and it didn't take time for Nick to acknowledge that in his usual way.

"So this is it. Breaking and entering. Evil fox tries t—"

" _Shush_ , you!" she chided and put a paw behind his waist as she guided him towards her desk because she wanted to make him feel at ease, which he definitely wasn't at due to his attempts of humor that she still wasn't sure if they acted as a shield to his true feelings. Her apartment had all the basic needs for survival and basic comfort, a place to sleep on without getting insects on your body, a place to sit on and prop your paws as to have a quick meal, a source of warmth and a container for all the clothes used for modesty.

It wasn't great but it was enough for now. After time she could afford something better and with a personal bathroom where she could do her job at peace and not get her heart strangled away from her by a loud knocking as well as unannounced attempts of getting in. She could make this work and could mold the environment to her satisfaction, while the company that she now had was somehow greatly appreciated. Now he was on her grounds and the keys were in her pockets and even if the chance of coming to that were slim to none, she was going to try to be cautious as to not overstep unspoken bounds between them which were still unknown.

"Where you hiding the swimming pool at?" She snorted involuntarily and pulled him closer to her as they neared the desk where some papers were scattered around. The sudden move got her hesitant as to pull him slightly away as she was greatly invading his space but he wasn't visibly or audibly speaking against that, thus she smiled it away with the idea of success. After all, by breaking bounds was how friendships were made and even if she had given him her promise to detain him if he were to continue hustling, that didn't actually mean that they couldn't actually develop a connection.

"Under the bed…" From the corner of her eyes she noticed a small genuine smile to her adaption to the circumstances, but she broke contact when they neared the desk and her paws reached for the lonely charger that she grabbed and plugged into her phone that she hastily pulled from her pocket. Some papers caught her eyes and rushed an electrifying buzz around her ears, thus she quickly flipped them around so that Nick wouldn't see what was on them, and he had not as her eyes caught sight of him staring at her bed where her dolls were ordered around the wall. If he had seen the papers, she wouldn't have been able to get anything from him, after all, they were his individual tax returns which amounted to lonely zeroes.

"Aren't you a bit old for plushies?" he teased with an expression that expected an embarrassed answer but she hadn't been asked for the first time such a question, as her siblings would do the same from time to time as well, annoying her by saying that she was still afraid by the dark and that her plushies kept her safe. That wasn't the case at all, she just saw them as company in the lonely nights, and here they acted as a barrier with the cold wall which had sucked her dry on the first darkness.

"You're never too old for plushies," she answered by turning around at the desk and finalizing her arrangement of the papers that a certain red tod wasn't supposed to see. She heard his claws to scrape the wood floor and her ears went straight up, but she sensed that something was going to happen, something peculiar, something… Fur grinded against her head and in between her ears, which instantly fell but not on her shoulders but on the mammal behind her that relaxed with partial weight that her legs now bore further. He had just put his head on top of hers and she could see the end of his long muzzle, while extra warmth spread around the area of contact but at least it was only his head, which wasn't enough to make her turn around scandalized by his behavior. She had initiated it after all, being all touchy and invasive, now he was showing her that it wasn't bothering him, at least not enough.

The creamy fur underneath his snout and neck was very fluffy, and she could hear and feel his slow and steady breathing that vibrated around her temple and got her slightly to readjust her head by moving his around as well, which got him to grin and she saw his upper canines pointing down, thus her instincts kicked in but she crushed them down and hid them under tight control. They weren't going to ruin the moment, they weren't going to further hurt him with her unsure position.

"This your family?" The rumble made her stop overseeing the battle inside her fluttering head and to see that his muzzle was pointed at the picture where her young-self could be seen with her parents in a single snap of history. She heard rustling of fabric and then saw two auburn wrists to go around her and reach for the picture, while his body moved close to hers and more weight as well as warmth spread around her shoulders now. Uncomfortable was a very good explanation of how she felt, yet she didn't want him to get away from her which was even more troublesomely odd.

The picture he was looking at was taken probably sometime after her school play. She was in an elegant purple dress that complimented her wide smile, while the presence of her parents further added to that effect of affection. Well, they could've dressed better but it wasn't of that grave importance, apart from one detail that was grabbing too much of her attention and probably Nick's.

"This your parents?" he asked to which she nodded and he snorted, which meant that he had seen her dad's cap that had a big orange carrot in front, thus she sighed in exasperation at the coming comment but decided to get him to just not mention it by doing it herself.

"Yes, Nick, my dad's a stereotypical bunny. You don't need to say it."

"Nah, I was going to ask who's the little one in between." Her mouth fell, she knew what was going to happen, it had happened before and she didn't want it coming out of his mouth that had the ability to make a single word have the meanings of a thousand. "She looks extremely c—" Her paws reached and tightened around his muzzle in a hard squeezing motion which got him to slightly push against her and muffled sounds to escape where his lips gave out but not a single one of those had the contents she didn't like. Some time was given to him to understand why she had just done that and when she felt his throat to start the chuckles, she released him and even felt him to _hmmm_ into her head on which he nestled himself again.

"You can't deny the truth in the unspoken word, Carrots." The picture that was in his paws was grabbed with a grumble of discontent and she reached for another one that had every Hopps family member behind her house. "What's this? A picture with the whole town?" That was expected of him to say but she giggled nonetheless.

"No. This is my family of 275 siblings. Not counting aunts, cousins…" she answered and felt his vibrating attempts to form words but the only thing exiting his mouth was gibberish which, coming from him, was just too good to be true and that made her feel the tickling inside her belly that exited her lungs in a laughing fashion.

" _Wow_ … wa— no way… how do you even cope? Where do you all live!? Are you in here as well?" The city fox caught not knowing things, this was something you didn't see every day and it was widening her smirk while her voice chords were filling with the aura of smugness.

"It's not that _haaard_. Organization _aaand_ order. Oh and I'm there, will the _city_ fox be able to find me?" she asked in a taunting tone but she felt his throaty gibes that hummed around his chords. What had he schemed now?

"Way ahead of you. You're not that hard to miss. That makeshift police uniform does make you stand out from this horde of bunnies." She felt a sudden wave of warmth spread around the nerves of her body, or was it his closeness to her? What he had just said sounded like an actual compliment which wasn't something she had expected from him at all but she couldn't be sure, not without asking. That wasn't going to happen and she buried her semi-decision while giving the remnant of that exciting feeling to roam around her like a butterfly.

His musky scent was starting to envelop her as if it was creating a barrier all around, while enriching the air with itself and getting her nostrils to speak with her brain and direct her thoughts at the fox who had been in this position for over a minute now. She smiled and put the frame from where it had come, while taking the last one which had three does that seemed incredibly vibrant and lively, one of them being Judy herself.

The other two were her littermates, who had trapped her in the middle, one of them being a brown doe with a lighter shade on her muzzle who was wearing very short shorts and a pink sleeveless shirt which's one strap had fallen towards her elbow, thus exposing quite a lot of fur around her chest, while her lean stomach was extremely visible as well. She had glued herself to Judy's annoyed cheek with paws around her neck and hazel eyes that spoke volumes of energy and fondness, which was always greatly appreciated, always.

On the other side was a purely white doe with tall ears and grey tank top which as well exposed quite some fur but not as much as the brown doe's. One of her arms was leaning against Judy's shoulder and her blue eyes were starting at the lens in a confident and smug fashion. She wasn't that warm of a sister but the days of thinking about that were long gone, she had chosen her path.

And Judy was amidst all of that youth with paws huddled close to her black short-sleeved shirt that had been accompanied by a very nervous smile as she could remember that she hadn't even known about someone taking a picture of them as she had just come from training, her dark-grey shorts having glued themselves to her thighs and outlining her toned physique even better, not that she didn't like seeing herself like this but shyness was a factor when someone else could see that, especially if his name was Nick Wilde who was right now hugging her head and partial top of her back with his warm body.

 _Stop thinking things like that!_

"Who're these tight does, _hmmm_?" Okay, now she really felt bashful, she knew that she looked good but coming out of his mouth was like honey. Maybe he was just talking about her sisters? Hey, he couldn't talk like that about her sisters! She faked a light growl which resonated around him and got him to snort.

"White one is Jalen, the unbashful one is Jennie. We're from the same li— stop smiling like that!" Her paw reached for the corner of his lip and pulled it down as her heart was rather perplexed from what he had said. The stickiness covered her fingers and he even gingerly growled playfully to which she removed her paw and cleaned her fingers on his fur but then her eyes zeroed on Jalen and her thoughts became again plagued by the past. Why had they became so distant, what was the main reason for her sister to start despising her so much…

"Did something happen between you three?" His tone was devoid of sarcasm, it had that warm note of real worry, which managed to take her aback and get her to pull the frame towards her chest but as she saw her screw-up, that had been created by the unexpected question, she sighed sadly.

"Only with Jalen… I don't know what happened but she became more distant… we rarely even talked the years before I went to the academy..." There was no drive to talk further about her sister, this was a painful topic, for which she didn't even have answers for herself, thus she put the frame on the desk and finally decided that the closeness was to end as she was getting very hot and his scent would stick to her again like a glove. She looked up and blowed her breath against the underside of his muzzle which got him to squirm and _mmmrmhm_.

"Did you forget how to hold your head up?" she shoved with irk which got him to tilt to the side but then a smile came about with a tone that suffocated her burning ears with sarcasm.

"Oh my, I totally forgot! I'm so sorry for the terrible crime I've committed!" His head pulled off hers and he blew his breath at her disgruntled fur to which she turned around and frowned at him as her paws reached for the spot of warmth and tried to smooth the battlefield he had created. She noticed him move to the side and get his phone out his pocket while she put on a few more finishing touches, and when she turned around to see why he had frozen, she saw the last thing on Earth that was supposed to be in his paws, that being her carrot pen.

 _Don't touch the button, don—_

And he pressed the button, with the sound of fumbling and unintelligible words trying to get by from the speaker of the small object. There was no time for caution, thus she harshly snatched the pen and stopped the playback, after which she placed it away from his reach, while her ears went in front of her and she began caressing them without further explaining him why she had just done that. He was visibly greatly taken-aback by her move but snickered shortly after.

"You like too much carrots, Carrots," he quipped like usual when not wanting to drop his mask, thus shrugging it off as a joke and went to sit on the bed, while she moved her weight around her feet in attempts to stop thinking about the pen and to actually do so about how the cunning fox actually thought, as that would be of a great benefit if she could read him like he could with her. Her bed creaked and she saw him patiently waiting for her with half-closed eyes, thus she did so and as she sat, his expression didn't even waver for a moment, until he moved his gaze away and her butt positioned itself on the semi-comfortable mattress, with a light bounce, but this time there was a respectable distance between them, she couldn't take any more heat right now.

They both sat in marginally uncomfortable silence that had deafened the room, while the ruckus from outside continued to intrude through the opened window. There was some chattering from the floors above as well as squeaks from the steps of mammals and just as she was to fill the silence with anything, Nick moved inwards on her bed and turned around slightly, with his tail almost hitting her in the face, if she hadn't stopped it with her paw and moved it without any collision. He was searching for something on the brick part of the wall. His claws were trailing off the red surface of the old convex wall until he stopped and turned around, this time the tip of his tail managing to brush against her nose as it passed and getting it to wiggle crazily.

"Promised you something… look at the bricks behind me, from the top right, 14 bricks down," he said with a small smile and Judy pushed herself on her knees on top her bed and moved closer to the red extension, searching for something she didn't even know what it was. The 14th brick was found but it looked just like all the others, red, old, and rugged.

"Are you pulling my ears, Nick?" she retorted with an annoyed tone and an irritated glare at the smugly-looking fox who didn't even flinch at her tone.

"Dunno… you tell me" –she huffed darkly- "look at its side." With hesitation and eyes that were searching for any hidden agenda of his, she tried again and this time leaned at the side. Yes, there was something written… no it was dug into the surface itself by something sharp but that didn't matter, she needed its contents. And the contents read ' _2006 NICK WAS HERE!_ ' with a bad representation of a foxy face near the end, which got her eyes to widen gradually and excitement to stir inside her body. He had lived exactly here, slept on this bed and walked on the same floor and had left his imprint in history's wake.

She had to know more and asked with a lot of thrill, "You must've been what… 18? And you came to live here by yourself?!"

"Yup." The answer tackled her spirit and she felt a sudden weight all around her chest that made her feel out of breath because he had done what she had hesitated of doing for so long, to just come to Zootopia and try to find her place in the big world but she had pursued a career as a cop, yet she could've always came to wait in the big city, not stay at her family farm like she had… Why, why had she done that. Yea, there was some answer which was consistent but it was created by her to comfort her lack of confidence of taking the blind plunge… It got her to sit on the bed and just stare between her legs.

"Why the long face?" Ah, there was someone in her room… yea… she hadn't had company since her arrival at the big city and it was indeed lonely, being separated from the hordes of rabbits, who'd try and come into her room and irritate her. But it wasn't that bad actually, it felt cozy, it felt like home. This, this felt rather artificial and cold but now that there was her foxy company, it didn't feel that empty, she just needed to get used with him so they can both relax in each other's presence. That meant more talking.

Her demeanor immediately changed with a wide smile and she spilled out her problem that was bouncing around her head like a possessed demon ball. "Nothing, just… I would've loved to have done like you… but I didn't…"

"What did you do before you came here?" She thought he'd never ask her. Her eyes glanced at his and just like that, she got close to her pillow and lay her head onto it while extending herself fully and feeling her muscles tension to finally be taken by the bed. The ceiling seemed cracked with little spiders roaming around the corners like ants. She ought to do something about those little buggers but it was too far away and yet, why destroy these insects' home, they weren't doing her any harm nor were dangerous for her.

She had almost forgotten that Nick had asked her something, furthermore she felt slightly sorry for that as he must've thought that the question had hit too deep, which wasn't even close to the truth but sometimes a lack of answer gave more content that a spoken one, thus she opened her mouth as to start but she couldn't find words and a place from which to do so. Her mind brought her back to Bunnyburrow's night life but she instantly shrugged that memory off as it wasn't a very pleasant one as her sisters had become drunk and she had to not only fend off bucks from herself but them as well. Babysitting grown-ups was not to her liking.

 _Ah, yea… best like that, I guess…_

"Finished torture school at 18..." –she flashed him a small smile which he understood what it meant and rolled his eyes in response- "Wanted to go straight to the Police Academy so I sent my application. I was ready because I'd trained and studied a lot but they rejected me… So it was university for around a year until I just quit. I wanted to be a cop, not a secretary or teacher…"

"So after I quit, I had the opportunity to send another application to the academy which again got rejected… Nothing was going to stop me, so I worked when I had spare time and just waited for the next admission… Just lived my life like any other mammal… it was fun but it wasn't what I had dreamed of, not even close… I did that for 4 years… 4 years Nick…" He wasn't mocking her, he wasn't interrupting nor was his expression one of teasing and smugness. He was actually looking sympathetic and his ears had slightly fallen and that made her lungs to collapse on themselves a bit. There was a soft side in him after all.

"So, I turn 23 and am in the fields, pulling out _car-rots_ …" She looked at him angrily because a snicker at last came from his mouth, and she tried to hit him with her leg on his thigh but missed as he scooped away while pulling out his long tongue in daring her to try again but she just muttered with a smirk, " _Dumb fox..._ " Her head rested again on that heavenly pillow and her mind took her back to that chest-tightening day when she had almost received a heart attack from the news that were delivered by her lovable sister.

" _Soooo_ , I'm in the fields and I see Jennie running towards me with an envelope in her paw. I couldn't understand her back then, she was babbling! When I did, it appeared that the letter was from _the_ academy. But she ran off! Oh the nerve she had to do that… Next thing you know I'm sitting on her and she begs me to let her go as it had been her favorite shirt. Seeing her embarrassed in such situations, when she isn't in ones she should be, is just so interesting to see..." Nick's neutral expression turned into a darkened smile which's contents were vastly unknown. Why was he looking at her like that?... Whatever.

"So I let her sit up next to me while I'm opening the letter very slowly. And there it is, my acceptance into the academy at last! It was the best day of my life, Nick!" –the rush of energy from her memories almost got her to shoot off the bed- "My sisters managed to persuade me to go to a nightclub… bad choice. Well, it was fun until some bucks thought they could get away with things… I _ugghhh_ … yea… got kicked for giving them… black eyes…" Her nervous smile reached Nick who was doing exactly the same at that point.

 _Good job, Judith, now he'll be afraid to even talk to you…_

" _Sooo_ , I go to the academy, after a week of anxiety and excitement. It was close to the sea. You could even see Savanna Central's docks and bridge! But nothing else, there was always some kind of clouds or mist. There was a forest all around the place… I remember when I walked in for the first time, the guard asked me what did I think I was doing… So I show that bigot my documents and he snorts. He snorts and tells me _good luck_ with mockery! _Pftf_ … I knew what I was getting myself into, so I didn't really poke my head up too much." Why was he letting her talk so much and why was she talking so much. She was giving everything away, yet there was this need to do so, to just talk with somebody who'd actually listen. Was he actually listening? His eyes were aimed at her and there was nothing else that was distracting him, _huh_ …

"The first… the first day the instructors tried to intimidate us and thank the Carrot Lord they weren't prejudiced, so they didn't bully only me… They made us run twenty laps that day, which I finished first… biggest mistake I've ever done… They told me that because I was so good, I could do double!" –Nick chuckled at that- "Never tried to finish first after that day, only during the exams… I did make some friends in there but we didn't connect much, guess they didn't took me seriously… or it could've been jealously… there were some problems…" There sure was jealousy as her scores were just the best and many of the cadets expressed their discontent by ignoring her or trying to make her quit, memories which didn't bring happy thoughts, especially one particular cold night.

"Tests! Tests right? Was I there… right, forgot!" She had panicked as the need to tell someone about that day just erupted into her throat but she managed to stray it away by mish-mashing words. They may've confused Nick but she wasn't ready to talk about that yet. "I had prepared for years for the endurance and theory tests but then they put me to spar with other cadets… the biggest cadets! How's that even closely fair? You can't test me like that… But you know what? I knocked down a rhino!" When she said the last part, she sat up and swinged her fist in front of her, while her silver-grey tail wiggled in excitement.

But the reaction she was searching for like awe or surprise was one of disbelief and suspicion. "And I've seen a talking gator…" Nick scoffed by shaking his head and smirking a bit as if she had just pushed an unexpected joke. That infuriated her and she moved closer to him.

"You think I'm making this up?"

"Aren't you? I mea— c'mon! A rhino? Yo— thi…" Her neutral expression was kept firm and unrelenting and Nick visibly understood that she was being real with him, she hadn't lied nor had given him the impression that she could do that. Well, everyone could but she despised the concept. "You're serious?" Her nod of seriousness made Nick's claws to trail around his neck and even if he tried to say more, the room only received the orchestra of city life from outside.

" _Ughm_ mm… Yea… Then there was more training and much more boring stuff… A year passed, and I accomplished valedictorian of my class!" –his smirk got her to remember what he had said when she was following him after the hustle, yet it wasn't a hostile one, more like a smirk of warmth- "and they sent me to the prestigious Precinct One… where I get parking duty! And then… then I get hustled by you… _you_ … you _dumb_ fox!" she yawped angrily and stood up on her feet, thus towering over him with crossed arms, also closing the distance between them again, which got his hackles to jolt and his ears went flat to his skull while he leaned away slowly as if she was a predator waiting for any sudden movement to lunge.

"Anything you got to say for yourself?" she asked with bitterness, yet she was putting up an act as to see how he'd react as well as to have some fun on his behalf, it was fair and square as he had been doing the same.

His confidence visibly returned and with smugness, he voiced, "You're welcome." She stared at him without changing her expression but then, she slowly smiled and the gratification inside her lungs hissed into laughter as his ability to sway any situation just had shown itself for the who-knows-what time today. Then she decided to get closer to him as she felt more of a connection in between that had been growing since the café and their talk at that bridge. He visibly didn't mind as their bodies weren't touching but the warmth could be felt as well as his scent, nothing uncomfortable.

"You're unbelievable…" she hiccupped after her laughter died down, while looking at his eyes, which were aimed somewhere else as if he was musing upon something.

"You said that you would've loved to have done as I have..." –his tone was serious and when their gazes met, she knew that he was being genuine because of the bubbling fire in his emeralds- "I'm going to tell you that you haven't missed anything… You've actually had it good and haven't had to swim through all the crap you would've had to if you did come here then... Trust me when I say this, I'd have given _anything_ to change my decision… But I can't… And pulling carrots? That sounds so ideally simple…" No it didn't, he hadn't been there to experience that for himself! Everything else would've been better than pulling carrots, that's why she stopped doing it after a month and found something more productive.

"I did walk the thin line of the law" -he glanced for a moment at her with hints of sadness while meeting her curious eyes- "I did cross it several times then, but there was no other way… I could see no other way… You would've been different, I know… but the same problems would've appeared… Finding work... doing what you love… free time… Things like that become hard and scheduled… So don't be sorry, be happy that you didn't make the mistake I did, Fluff." He almost convinced her to believe that it were true but her expression remained doubtful because of the memories that fished out the feelings of discontent.

"But how can I be happy when I remember that I wasn't ev—"

"I know what's it been like. I don't want you to accept it, I want you to just know it because it's not something I'm proud of. I would've gladly exchanged places with you but why would I do that to someone else when I wouldn't do it to my own self? You don't deserve it…" It was plainly said but enough was carried with the message. Whatever had him riled up meant that there was something in between that had happened during his journey and she wasn't going to probe further than the circumstances would allow, thus she sighed in acceptance to the harsh experience as only a fool would try and contradict something that she didn't understand nor knew personally.

Again came that awkward silence which took thinking to break apart, she shouldn't be feeling the need to think about what to talk with him, nor did he but it seemed that he was lost in his own thoughts as his claw was moving around his mouth in a slow and repetitive manner. What was she going to ask him? He could tell her more about his past and himself. About where he lived and studied or what he did before hustling… Hadn't he made a rug for a mafia boss? Now that was surely a story that would be worthy of listening to. But then came one question that was promised to her, one golden and important one, one delicate and dangerous.

"Soooo… about… that…. About that _thing_ …" –she nudged his arm and pulled him out of dream land- "the thing you were going to tell me in private… is now a good time?" she asked with a pleadingly-light voice to which his expression conjured a sackload of apologetic shock.

"Oh! Yes… good that yo— to mention it… of course, almost forgot!" He motioned with his paw for her to come closer to him and she did without much movement as she was already pretty near him, but now her tall ears were very close to his muzzle, while he moved closer and closer until his nose was almost inside the folds of the base of her tall appendages which were twitching at his breathing in anxiety at the next words

In a very lowly-whispering tone, he began, "Now… the _thing_ … that I wanted to tell you is…" He looked around as if to see if anyone was watching or listening while she could hardly contain her rapturing shivers that were derived from the excitement and anticipation of his next words, words that would bring her one step closer to the foundations where she could build up her case against those criminals in blue, against those thugs and killers, agai—

"I prefer blueberries to _rabbit_ ," his slickly-whispered words slid into her ears and streamed into her mind with the contents of confusing toxicity while her eyes met his, which lined up in front of her with a wide grin underneath. What had just happened and why what he had just said made no actual sense within th—… Her mind managed to at last to stop the muddling and it anchored itself onto the shore of thinking. He had just made fun of her in a moment when she was greatly anticipating what he was to say, only to be met with a cocky and nerve-jabbing attitude which got her ears to droop and face to scrunch hard in fuming agitation.

Nick quickly recoiled away from her and even tried to get off the bed in haste but Judy wasn't going to let him off the hook, not after this childish behavior which had played with the flexibility of her heart that was beating ferociously in anxiety to find out more about the corrupt mammals as well as anything else. Her feet dug into the mattress and she lunged herself at the panicked fox whose tail had electrified like a spiky hedgehog. Her body collided with his side and her paws reached for his neck which she yanked back at the bed as to get him on his back and trap him underneath her.

He was visibly taken by surprise because he wasn't putting too much of a fight, thus she straddled his middle and squeezed her thighs so she'd keep him steady. "Rabbit! He— stop i—" She wasn't going to let him continue teasing her with his assholeness, and it even seemed that her move had worked even if he was slightly bigger because his torso just wasn't wide but lean. His paws tried to get him up from the bad position she had put him in, but she managed to pull one and trap it firmly, while she initiated to do so with the other. But then there was movement from behind her and she saw, from the corner of her eyes that he was moving his hips up. This wasn't his first time being trapped as such…

"Get o—" She didn't have a weight advantage and even if he was below her, it wasn't going to be hard for him to flip her over if she didn't have anything to hold onto. But it happened in an instant like it always did and as he rolled to the side, she did so with him but her legs were still firmly squeezing into his ribs. He coughed as she released them and squeezed again, due to the force, and his body fell on hers which engulfed her in a lot of heat as her own body was starting to amass it as well. Her paws reached for his head and she locked it hard while her head pushed into his so he wouldn't be able to push her away or put his paw in between them.

He managed to prop himself on his elbows and push himself up a bit with her glued to him in a very discomforting way that was evident from his grunts and groans. Her arms squeezed even harder around his throat as well as her legs around his middle which got him to try and inhale but it was not possible. His body fell on the bed and she felt his paws to reach for her arms and try and remove them but they were filled with endurance and strength which proved to be a futile attempt from his part. She had him and was going to show him not to mess with her like that.

But then she felt something underneath her own neck, it wasn't his paw because there was not enough space for him to snake it through… It was something sharp and solid which put pressure directly on her larynx and got her to freeze. Then one more object like that made contact and another and she understood what that was, it were his claws and they were starting to push harder and harder which meant that if she continued, he'd do so as well. But what he was doing was life-threatening, while what she was doing was just sport… and maybe a bit of desired intimidation.

Her paws slowly released the pressure around his neck and that was when he gasped for air and moved away from her face as she fell on her back on the bed but his claws didn't go away from her throat and his paw even pushed against her while he continued coughing. Was he angry that she had just done that, he had the right to be but she was angrier than him, thus her legs stood around him if she was to continue. His groans and labored breathing was roaming above her while the musk was starting to rub onto her body as well but she didn't care at that moment, her eyes were fixated on his that were reluctant to yet meet.

But then they did. He seemed rather winded as he was evidently panting with his warmth spreading around the contact between their bodies. She wasn't out of breath but could feel her own tempo inside her veins to be out of bounds as she just wasn't on his category, yet she was going to win if he hadn't cheated.

"That was unfair…" Judy mumbled at last with her paws reaching for his claws as to remove them from her most vulnerable spot but he was acting against her and even repositioned himself for a better grip.

"Why'd y—… do… this?" he asked through pants and she felt gentle movement of his claws moving away from her, but she wanted to make her point clear, thus pulled him into her, while the pressure dug into her throat even harder, and his muzzle was just now almost touching hers.

"Do not mock me!" she hissed with bared buck teeth while he stared at her with a flabbergast expression, his claws finally moving away, with some silver fur stuck around the sharp edges, from underneath her chin with which she had trapped them.

"I..? There ha— I haven't even done so!" He blurted out but she hugged him harder with her legs and pulled out a gasp from him. " _Ugh_ … Wasn't my intent, Fluff! Don't take it to heart!" How was she supposed to not do so when such attitudes and words were what she had to go through as she grew up. It was just impossible to not take it personally even when she tried.

"Easy for you to say. You're the one doing it…" She saw his frown but he didn't move back as to create some distance even if his face had reddened considerably, probably from the choking.

"It's friendly teasing… And I'm not the one jumping at you and trying to wrestle for a kiss." Now that crashed her angry resolve and flushed her with another feeling of embarrassment that she hadn't even believed to be possible to get to while in the situation they were in. Well, now that she looked at the position they were in, body to body, muzzle almost to muzzle and mingled scents in the middle of her bed, she felt this sensation around her thighs that almost got her to kick him off her.

"I'm not… loo—"

"Okay… if you don't want a kiss… can you… well… let me go, please?" It didn't even take a second for her to do so and worm herself away in a flash, with the wrinkled sheets she dragged with herself from under him, while he turned around and just laid on the bed with a decreasing breathing. His leg closer to her folded itself up and his paw pulled his pants from the side, while there was this uncomfortableness on his muzzle just like on hers. Why were there such feelings going around her body and mind of late, it was just like that night when she had fallen in between his legs, tho now he had been between hers…

 _Why does it sound so inappropriate!_

With a huff that was supposed to deplete her exasperation, she grabbed a brown rabbit plushie and hugged it hard as to try and give it her negative energy. She had just tackled Nick in a way that she'd do to her close friends and siblings, yet he wasn't blood, not even close, as they had known each other for no more than a few days… What was he thinking right now, did he think that she was crazy and incredibly physical? Was he going to leave because of her uncontrolled outburst that he was responsible for? Well, the only way to know would be to break the sliceable tension that festered in the air.

"Mammals have been trying to undermine me all my life… the only way to get them to stop was to fight for myself… I don't want to intimidate you… just don't want you to act like… _them_ …" Her hopeful gaze stayed at his head in anticipation of his movement towards her but it wasn't happening and the plushie was starting to receive even more force from her arms. But then a heavy sigh flew around the air and got her ears to tremble.

"I like your spirit…" What did he just say? It was said so flatly, yet… earnestly... His expression was neutral and the words had made her speechless with a widely-opened mouth. "You're not afraid to confront a _fox_ alone in your own home…" A fox? Why was he insulting himself like as such. There was nothing wrong about being a fox and using the word in such a sentence was disgusting!

"Do _not_ talk like that!" She jumped forward without even standing and was now closer to him to which he flinched and slightly leaned away but as she just stood there and glared, his body returned to the original spot and he even chuckled.

" _Wow_ … look… I may be an asshole but I am not acting like _them_. I don't hate you or want to hurt you… just… teasing without malice!" She didn't want to accept his words but they didn't carry anything out of the ordinary, they lacked a hidden meaning and as she thought more about it, why was she really reacting like that to him. It was as if she didn't want him to behave like that… because she cared for him? That was not possible, they didn't even know each other!

"You don't think I've forgotten, do you?" Okay, that voice was troubling because it carried that note of playfulness that meant only one thing: _trouble_. Trouble that caused her eyes to squint at him and foot to feel restless.

"What?" He lolled his head into the bed and licked his nose with a smirk.

"Bad smells and surprised neighbours… Something about—" Her at-attention ears fell dreadfully and her gaze moved around the room but she didn't want him to finish and interrupted.

"He was joking…" Her deflection was like scoring a goal into her own pitch, as it was so dull and probe-nudging. His breathing sounded like laughter to her now and the only thing she wanted was for him to just stop it and shut up, let the awkward silence feast again upon them and leave her be in her own bubble of comfort. But he wasn't going to let the bone go, no-no, she had tackled him and now he was going to tackle her…

"What was that punishment, Fluff?" Boom, there it was, the question that carried shame and humiliation as the answer proved all his words true, even worse, it proved that she was unfit for the job she was supposed to do. It made her blood to curl in resentment at her boss and her luck. She could always lie, always go down and go around the drops but she despised lies, they were hurtful and a barrier to a better life. She wasn't going to lie.

"I don't want to talk about it." His smirk crawled to his side and remained there, while he moved his claws in front of his face and began gliding them onto one another, which was greatly stripping her of her patience. She wanted to know more about what was promised to her, not to tell him about her glorious adventures in the form of feces on the ceiling and in her janitor's uniform.

" _Sooo_?" The tension was supposed to break and him to just continue from where he had made a major mistake. The point was for him to just let it go and forget about it but his smirk died down so much that he actually frowned in… distaste? And his head turned around!

"I don't want to talk about it," he voiced with disinterest and his paws crossed in front of his chest. She couldn't believe it, was he for real right now? Why was he behaving like a little kit whose ice-cream had just fallen on the floor, why did he want to embarrass her further into the pit of humiliation, which was melting on her nerves and getting her desperately gloomy. This was supposed to be a fruitful discussion from which both could benefit, and in the meantime, have fun in each other's presence, not get under each other's skin.

She turned around with her back at him and glared at the wall that divided her room with the world outside, while animosity blistered inside her heart in the form of an increased beat. Her room didn't seem like a safe space anymore, just an old and unkempt box where she lived in due to the decision to start small. Now the discomforts seemed unnecessary and idiotic, while the sounds from outside were getting to her brain in a very appalling way, so she jumped off the creaky bed and slammed the window shut, which rattled the thin glass and blew dust into the air.

When she swooshed around, Nick was now sitting on the edge of the bed with slight concern and as her foot tapped the floor hard, she contemplated if she should just tell him that she had to go somewhere and ask him to leave, thus she wouldn't need to further humiliate herself before the snarky tod. That would save some of her dignity and get him to understand that she isn't some country bumpkin, yet if she did that, her chances of getting anything from him would perish into ash as he wasn't an ordinary mammal, his mind would catch onto her issue right away. She wanted to know… and he wanted to know!

 _Fine!_

Thus she began with a rather hurt voice, "You want to know that much? You really want to know? Fine! Your scent was all over me, and I had to take a long shower…" –his smirk began falling off his face- "My punishment was cleaning toilets all day and I couldn't even take a shower after that because the one's in the PD had broken… The one here had a line to which I fell asleep because I was tired!" -she gulped hard from shame and gave him the view of her back - "Hope you're happy… laugh at the pathetic meter maid…" she added miserably and hugged herself because the onslaught was about to begin, the snickers were just going to erupt from his sharp mouth. But she waited, and she waited, and waited… But nothing was happening.

When she decided to finally see if he hadn't choked to death, the sight almost buckled her knees. His expression was filled with concern and empathy, there was no playfulness, there was actual sadness! "Look… it would've been funny if I didn't know that the whole department despises you being there. I know how you feel… its degrading… its unfair… I could say I told you so but… what's the point?" Her nose twitched once, then again, and again until it developed a rhythm, while her lips tried to quiver from exhilaration, he had just empathized with her and his words didn't have anything against her. He had the perfect chance to crush her down and he didn't take it.

There was this sudden spike of wanted affection, which needed to be shared, and her fingers began quirking sporadically as her eyes aimed at his neck but she held herself at bay because she couldn't do that, at least yet.

"C'mon, I promised you something," his words were met with a sharp chirp as she huddled her paws into a slap and hopped onto the bed without even caring that she was very close to him, but she didn't touch him even if there was the nagging want to do so. How more gentle could he be? Was this the surface? _Ughh_ , she should be thinking about building up her case, not about him!

"Okay… What I'll say, you haven't heard it from me! If they find out I've told you this, I'm a goner. You may want that but I wou—"

"I don't and I won't. I give you my word," her assertion got him speechless with a raised paw in the air, until he shrugged off the shock with a shake of his head and coughed into his paw.

"Okay… remember the leader of the Sahara Square gang?" -she nodded in response- "Duke's working with them. It appears that he's very close with the Longneck brother. And that guy owns the Oasis' Creek… You know? That place with the giant palm tree?" Of course she knew that tall giant of luxury, it had been one of the first insane sights she had seen when the tram entered Zootopia as it passed first through Sahara Square. It didn't look that flashy but she could just try and imagine it how it'd look during the night… probably majestic and mind-draining.

But knowing to whom it belonged slightly made that magnificence to bleak out as it could've been built on murder and crime. If it was then the whole place would be a pillar of immoral deeds and her marveling it got her slightly sickly, so she coughed out the disgust at the probable reality.

"That's how they launder the money, through the casinos, while they sell their drugs around the district." Okay, now she really felt disgusted at herself for being entranced by that giant palm building, it had been built on illegality, it definitely had been built on extreme violence… "I haven't seen him personally but I've heard that he was a drug user and rather unstable…" Such mammal having so much power and being unstable meant one thing, possible casualties in the future and that was unacceptable. But she had to listen, not interrupt.

"Duke's using his authority to orchestrate raids, searches and patrols on those that are a threat to Longneck. Meanwhile he keeps him safe by warning him about everything the departments' are about to do."

"The thing is, it seems that Duke is controlling the smuggling of drugs and other kinds of product. His partner, Thane, occasionally participates with him but he and Longneck are on bad terms from what I've heard. Yet, they seem to have some kind of mutual respect… it never ends well tho… no honor amongst thieves, right?" He looked at Judy with visible expectation for her to approve but she couldn't, the information had staggered her mind and she had shut herself off because she needed to think all of it through, to which Nick sighed surprisingly.

"Thane, on the other paw, don't have much on him... From what I've heard, he is affiliated with Mr. Big and that black asshole Stinghorn. He must have contacts at the ZIA because no one would've let him remain on the force. Especially Duke! If the octopus has crawled everywhere, you cannot trust anyone. Nobody!" he repeated with animosity which sounded to be aimed at himself, which got her to move back a bit from bewilderment. If there was corruption everywhere, that was why it wasn't actually being noticed by those who weren't… But if she couldn't trust anyone… how could she not? Even Nick who had just told her a lot of important information?… Life without trust was lonely and cheerless…

"That's it, Fluff… as I said… it's pretty much nothing." Nothing? Was he being modestly dumb or was it literally nothing…

"It's actually a lot, Nick… I won't involve you in these affairs… thank you for telling me!" Her smile was like the sun and she was to reach for his arm to reassure him that he had done the right thing when his face fell and the needles of uncertainty dashed inside of her. He began looking around the room in great visible terror as if he was searching for something, something specifically important and the worst came to mind. What if she was being spied upon? What if they had taken note of her behavior and had bugged her place… The only way to know why he was acting as such was just… to simply ask.

"Hey! What's wrong?" Her question sounded weak as well as her voice because she feared that something may happen to him and her, because the information that was divulged carried a lot of weight and danger. His drained of blood face tried to become normal and bring back that same healthy color but his expression just continued falling like dead-weight.

"I forgot it… No!… " His paws reached for his head and he pulled his fur down as if the world was going to end here and now.

"Th— what did you forget?! Speak to me, you're starting to scare me!" She reached for his paw and pulled it into her space, to which he flinched and his head came closer to her, while his eyes spoke terror in quantities of unknown.

"The muffins! They're under your neighbor's table!" The moment he had said that was when she flung his paw at him and crossed her own in irritation. He had made her go through countless dreadful scenarios, while his head was thinking about damn food?

"Unbelievable… You'll get them back when they come back, big deal… _dumb fox_ …"

"They may spoil!" he exclaimed with sadness in his voice and the sight finally got to her chest and she snorted at his silly behavior, which at last was starting to warm up after those cheerless moments of embarrassment. But time was moving on and she wanted to ask him more about… well him… But when their gazes met, hers being in the form of boundless curiosity, his narrowed and he huffed anxiously. "Oh, no… Don't give me that look!" Was he able to read minds? She smiled playfully and just as she was to ask him something else, his hasty voice passed through time and space. "I can stay a bit right?" he asked with a yawn.

"Ehm… yea… but can you te—"

"Great! I'll take a quick…" He crept towards her pillow and even grabbed one of her plushies that lay flat on its face as she had abandoned it during her moment of ire. He turned around towards the wall and his head collided hard with the pillow, which sent flying speckles of dust everywhere around the, illuminated by the sun's smile, room. "Nap…" What in the world did just happen in front of her hazy eyes… Did he just claim her bed? His tail pushed against the sheets and he reached for it, thus putting it over himself like a small blanket while a happy groan resonated and bounced from the wall in front of him where he was being watched by all her poor dolls that were trapped by the insolent predator named Nick Wilde.

"You can't just…" She got crawled towards him, which lightly bounced the curled tod, and her paws reached for his arm, which she tugged by his silky shirt. "C'mon, Nick! It's still midday, you can't sleep now. Get off!" But he squirmed himself further into the wall as if he wanted to weld himself there and become a part of the bed, not that she would've been against that, a body to warm the blanket after work… Okay, she didn't just seriously consider that. With a hard blush, she sat on the edge of the bed and played with her ears from crankiness.

 _Dumb fox, only thinks about sleeping…_

Her head turned slightly and she just started at his back. This was a good chance to examine him closely, a perfect opportunity to feed her eyes details which previously would've resulted in teasing and inappropriate comments. His auburn-tipped ears merged perfectly with his red fur that moved downwards towards his muzzle. The shade transition was so interesting and alluring, while the following was his creamy one underneath his muzzle, muzzle which's lips were trembling, as he tried to exhale from his mouth to which another cute groan came about. Why was he making these sounds? They sounded so… adorable…

 _Sweet cheese and crackers, stop thinking about him like that!_

On the end of his muzzle were a few spots where his whiskers would grow, it appeared that he had trimmed them recently, something she did with her own white ones as she didn't really liked them on her. They just showed too much of her mouth motions and betrayed her thoughts. Her nose was enough of a backstabber…

Oh but that creamy fur, she remembered the sensations when it touched and rubbed against her head. How soft and warm and comforting it was. He paw reached subconsciously towards his neck as she wanted to feel its fluffiness again but she slapped herself instantly at the realization of what was to just happen, thus the drug of embarrassment flushed through her like lightning and she turned away from the roguish fox who had audibly fallen asleep with very light snores.

Just now she began her reflection upon the situation and previous activities that had transpired while they were in the room. There was a fox… No, there was a male fox in her apartment, and more importantly, sleeping in her bed… She hadn't thought about it like that and felt heat start to build in her ears as well as her heart, changing its rhythm to a faster one than the one before, which was unhealthy, nevertheless. Then came the memory of their small grappling session, which at the time, she didn't really see as such like she did now, yet that didn't embarrass her, somehow she felt good with that and didn't see anything wrong.

But then, well… then came the memory of him putting his soft creamy fur on top of her head, which started off an itchy-involuntary reaction between her thighs that got her to squirm in her spot as she rubbed them together, while huffs and puffs sneaked through her lips with hot air. She didn't want to accept that there was some building attraction in her for the charming vulpine but her body was betraying her, and she felt somewhat trapped, not being able to lie to herself and seeing what was actually happening, as well as realizing it. She sighed and accepted the newfound truth and agreed to not think upon the matter too much as it didn't mean anything, just some small impulsiveness on her part, which would subside. That's what she told herself and that was what managed to calm her down.

She looked back at Nick who hadn't moved anything from his old self. His breathing was steady and it was certain that he had lost himself in rest. That got her to smile at his ability to doze off so fast and she thought about how he trusted her to such an extent as to actually fall asleep in her presence. He seemed like a mammal who would be very careful and would probably never put himself in a vulnerable situation like this one, yet he did and that additionally warmed her throbbing heart, realizing that he didn't distrust her. That meant that they were connecting with each other and probably could become friends, she hoped so at least. While looking at him an idea popped in her head, and she jumped off her bed and moved towards the small desk from where she snatched her phone and almost ripped the charger off the wall.

Her camera was instantly opened and she readied herself for a selfie, which included a fluffy fox in her bed with his rump visibly outlined by his fetal position. Her smile bloomed into the lens and several quick pictures were saved into the phone's eternal circuit of memories. They were good but only one was to remain and as it was chosen with a small bounce in her motionlessness. She returned the piece of technology back from where it was taken and her butt came back from hence she had hopped down.

What was she supposed to do now? She could always just kick him out but that was going to be mean after him telling her quite a lot that she needed. After all, trust really was going to be a problem with all these troubling words that had come out of his mouth. Maybe she should dig into files and… but she didn't have any files that were of help nor did she have a laptop from where she could organize her thoughts better. Well, there was the classic way of pen and paper but that was the easiest way to get caught and she trusted her brain well enough.

And her brain was telling her something important, it was telling her that she needed rest as well, maybe a quick nap would do the trick. There was nothing wrong with that and she knew that Nick wouldn't do anything dumb, she'd catch him quite easily if he did, not that she believed that he would but anything was possible. Her side touched the mattress and she moved slightly backwards so her head could get onto the stolen pillow. Her paws formed an extension of that cushion of comfort and a stress-relieved exhale pursed her lips.

This wasn't anything out of the ordinary, just two mammals sharing a nap amidst the middle of the day, two mammals who had respectable distance between them and none of them had any thoughts about anything else in special. His scent moved around her nose in larger quantities again and this time the image of him got her to feel that exciting sensation around her belly and below. It was a pleasant one, one that got her lilac eyes to close with a smile and the comfy and giddy thrill instilled sleep's tendrils around her mind as they pulled her into the depths of the deepest ocean of calm.

 _Okay… he's… a bit cute… just… a… bit…_

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	8. Death's Breath

**Chapter Eight**

 **Death's Breath**

Eve had struck, the sun was no longer intruding through the naked window of Judy's tiny apartment and the rogue dust grits could no longer be seen. Everything was serene and peaceful until it just wasn't, as nothing last forever, it just never does.

Some disgruntling noise shook from above her room and part of the ceiling's substance peeled off and fell, which finally got Judy to stir awake from her _short_ nap, thus her eyes opened slowly, while a yawn came about to life. The trampling above continued with a worsening intensity, thus one of her ears just went straight up as to catch the infiltrators of her home. Her blurry eyes managed to focus and she appeared to be in the same position from when she had lost herself in relaxation.

Her nose jerked when she deeply inhaled the heavy scent of musk through her nose, which wiggled and got her to arch her back from a misplaced sensation. Yea, Nick must be still sleeping beside her in the suffocation of her plushies but had trapped her other ear somehow as it felt a bit numb, well more than a bit and even kinda… moist? Why was it moist?

Her body tried to turn around but her ear tugged on the base and she _owed_ from mild pain, thus tried again but slowly and with closer of a contact to the perpetrator. The moment she leveled her eyes with the reason that was holding her down was the moment her cheeks filled with hotness and steam. Her ear was inside of his mouth and drool seemed to have wormed down its folds while the pink and reddening flesh was laid bare to her as she had twisted it during her rotation.

Her disbelief was freezingly-shocking as she couldn't properly react to the situation, let alone the closeness of his head to hers, which's deadliness, was laid like a museum in close range, his rows of white horses being entirely visible, as his upper lip had gotten stuck around his gums. She didn't dare further move as her instincts were whispering at her to not wake up the deadly predator, the fox who was in her own den which he had claimed for himself.

The predator had caught his prey and was playing asleep just to toy with her until she moved and he was to jump at her throat for the kill, for her last breath of life. But then came her rational part which pushed away the perks of the past, yet that didn't make her feel any better, only stirred sensations she didn't want to feel at that very moment as not only her ears were continuing to heat up but her whole body, which was starting to change her scent to one of arousal that even her nose could catch, while Nick's jiggled a few times and then came the deep sniffs which embarrassed the fur out of her existence.

A small smile tugged around the corner of his maw and his lip finally fell and hid his predatory features which were making her feel out of breathe due to the closeness between them. Why wasn't she looking away and why were her eyes taking every single moment, why was she not blinking. Soreness overwhelmed her peepers and she re-oiled them at last and just stared again at his head. He was so peaceful, no more did he look wild or dangerous but small and even vulnerable…

She was baffled, how could such a strange situation activate those deep feelings inside was beyond her, she just couldn't remember feeling such craving like right now. She could remember having small crushes and attractions but not on such a scale. Maybe she wasn't into her species? Maybe it was her instincts that had been making her blind and she was now wide-awaked. She moved closer to his maw which got her heart to beat against her rib cage viciously in a breathless way, and she could even hear it if she tried to. Her hesitant paws wanted to touch him, to savor his existence and feel that he was real, while her hunger starved harder and harder.

The pressure to just do it became unbearable and with an internal whimper, her shaky paw reached for his exposed throat and her fingers burrowed gently into his cream delight. It was just like she could remember it, only this time the act felt even better as from the guilty inappropriateness she was indulging herself in. So soft, yet hard. So much more thicker than her own, and beneath it all she reached his skin that emanated warmth around her fingers as they trailed up his head and cheek, her short claws furrowing the fur behind them.…

He sneezed in a squeaking manner, which got her to instantly flinch and feel pressure on her ear which did subside quickly but her pumper was now flying with the speed of light and her muscles trembled in readiness for her to dash out of humiliation, yet he mumbled something to himself and his rhythmic breaths resumed their sail.

Almost caught amidst her dumbness, she was on the verge of just stopping and waking him up but the naughty part of her, which had been kept in solitary for such a long time, just persevered and took control over her actions and body, which moved even closer to his in want to feel his existence. But this time she wanted the real deal, the melters of loins.

 _Just a touch…_

Very slowly and precisely, her fingers pushed through the walls of his lips, with drool covering their entrance, and reached the bony pillars of sharpness and death which shined into her wide eyes through the small crack she had forced bare. But that wasn't enough, her eyes wanted more and she used more of her paw to raise his lip up so she could yet again see those rows of grinders and breakers. There they were, standing still with some small pieces of leftover muffin that he had eaten previously at the café.

The stickiness was making things easier for her when she sled her probes around his sharpness and towards her trapped ear, while she could feel another kind of stickiness to accumulate around a certain part of her which was pushing her to be more daring, more aggressive and wild… The desire to do something more than trail around his teeth blossomed inside of her and it wasn't stopping even if she could clearly see the disaster that could happen if he were to just open his emeralds to the violation she was doing to him… But he wouldn't mind… she was just checking his teeth.

Just then his jaw moved with his teeth grinding her sensitive flesh which got her to shiver but then something wet and flexible moved around the end of her appendage full with roots of sensations, and then came the lickings of her folds which just pulled out a moan that she managed to exhale without giving it too much audibility, while she was just losing herself in the immoral pleasure.

Being so close to him was exhilarating for the young doe, and she now craved to move even closer to him and fill herself with his air, while her free paw roamed her belly that tickled in a needle-like fashion. She could see that her scent was going crazy, as the warmth around her nethers was getting unbearably hot for her to keep her legs tightly together, while Nick's nose began actively moving again as he inhaled even more air that had filled its cells with enriched thrill. But now his lips were even curling in spasms, it was making her feel like a puddle of emotions.

But she was forgetting herself, her newly-found feelings were clouding her rationality so she was acting very impulsively again. Just as she was about to continue with even greater intimate-guilty pleasures, something in her mind popped up and made her halt.

 _I can't do this while he isn't awake! I am taking advantage of him…_

 _So? He wouldn't mind._

 _He will if he found out, and I don't think he has such feelings anyway!_

 _See? Only if he found out… keep going._

 _No!_

She stopped indulging herself in her want and ceased whatever she was doing, figuring it was time to remove her trapped ear from his mouth so there wouldn't be any strange questions and needed explanations while what had just happened would remain in the annals of history of her most secret memories. Just as she was about to push him up and do the deed, a yell came from behind the thin wall that crashed everything in terms of her shortly-developed plan.

" _What the FUCK'S that smell, Pronk? You forgot damn food under the sun you damn IDIOT!"_ The sharp voice shook the delicate walls that separated her apartment and entered the room, while Nick groaned from annoyance and twitchy lips, he was going to open his eyes… He was going to open them, she had t—

" _No! Stop yelling in my bloody ears!_ " His lids opened in an instant and his pupils shrunk under the swarming light, and zeroed instantly on Judy's terrified ones that wanted to flee away from her sockets and save themselves while there was still time to at least keep some of her decency that was slipping away under the muddy torrents of guiltiness. Her paw was just mere paces from his maw where her ear was being held hostage, and she couldn't move it away as if he was a T-rex who just waited for her to make a move so he could spot her.

His tongue slapped around the rim of her precious ear and his jaw opened with a lot of hesitancy, and she saw the strings of saliva from his teeth and gums to stretch until they couldn't no more as they severed, while her appendage was in a state of violation as the fur was just drenched in his drool as well as… untidiness? It was looking at everywhere!

She didn't even wait for him to begin and yanked herself out of the foxy trap she had been caught into, thus her ear wetly slapped against her back, which got her to arch forward in surprise and jump off the mingled with essence bed, which got her to feel a bit dizzy and breathless for some moments. An explanation about what had happened needed to be conjured but her shame was burning her cheeks and she was afraid to show him her ripened tomato face. Was this considered sexual assault? But he hadn't known… That didn't make it any better… But there wasn't anything sexual, just curiosity from being so close to species vastly different from her own… Yea, she did have those sensations but she had only explored his face…

 _Is that my excuse?!_

" _We were late and now this?!_ "

"What's that smell?" Smell? Was it coming from her neighbours… or was it her body essence th—

 _Sweet cheese and CRACKERS!_

Her butt sent her flying at the window that was opened in the matter of a second, while her chest convulsed with dreading anxiety as she had forgotten about his deeply-reaching nose, a purple extension of his predatory senses that could reach places she could even dream of getting to. The clock was ticking, the more she hesitated the less her words would deem belief. With a hard gulp that swallowed her shame, she turned around with a very fake smile and intertwined her fingers into a knot that served as a pathetic barrier.

"Somethiiing, in the corridor! The sewer pipe maybe must've happened, yea… _heh_ … _ahmm_ …" she explained and gave him a guilty-looking smile.

"It's not crummy…" His tongue blanketed his nose as he wiggled his jaw and stretched himself to a sitting position with crossed legs and the rabbit plushie in between.

 _Of course it isn't you dumb fox! Just let it go…_

" _Stop damn whining, ain't a big deal!_ "

"Your ear was… _yea_ …" The etched confusion with the lack of wittiness was telling her that he didn't know what had happened prior nor had he done the trick with the ear on purpose, not that it would be possible to know if he had… So what now, was she supposed to take the blame and let him be full of himself with his joking attitude? Her legs moved her to the bed so they were touching the wooden frame, while she trembled below the knees from the surge of energy.

" _Ughm_ … fell asleep and… it got there, and it's mated with your drool, _doofus_!" she tried to get him to feel guilty and make him forget his next questions he seemed to have in store, but it looked like he wasn't satisfied yet.

" _Oh_!?" -playfulness took away the chunks of confusion from him, _uh-oh_ \- "You did again? Why does it feel intentional?" Why did he have this brain of his that was capable of making links so easily with information, right now his intelligence was really bothering her because it was going to be almost impossible to get him to shut up.

"It just happened, _pftf,_ " she scoffed and crossed her arms as the feeling of being personally attacked controlled her tendons.

"Twice." His correction annoyed the hell out of her and she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of offering him the idea that she liked it, even if she secretly did.

"Doesn't mean I wanted to!" The innocent way she had said it and his disbelief that chuckled into existence got her leg to want to beat against something, anything.

"No? But you did." And that she did, it was hard to try and deflect him because he was unwavering in his confidence, while she was crumbling apart because there just weren't any arguments that would be worthwhile.

"What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to talk to myself while you were at it?"

"Anything but trying to climb into my mouth." Distress and angst as well as fuming irritation was what het inner-self was going through right now, and she decided to go against what she thought wouldn't work as she closed the space between them and now stood close to him with a frown that carried the vibrancy of Earth's core.

"You were all over _me_!" she retaliated angrily. His mocking smirk was going to fall down, it needed to fall down. Her eyes noticed his nose to move closer to her and he began breathing through it.

"But of course I wa—"

"And you liked it!" Okay, that definitely came out in impulsiveness and hadn't even been thought through, thus in front of her stood a shocked red fox whose nose was actively blinking and her confidence took a great hit as she remembered that the essence of excitement had laid itself around her trunks and he was having close access to her, which meant that now he was going to be sure from where it was coming from… A disaster...

" _Ughm_ … wha— _hey_ … What's the time, Fluff?" A way out, he gave them both a way out of the catastrophe they were exactly in between, so she moved away from him with an awkward, yet appreciating, smile and reached for her phone.

"19:26." What was going inside his foxy brain of his. What had he schemed? As she turned around, his trepidation turned into a light smile which beamed at her brightly.

"Great, get ready, we—" But then something crashed in her neighbors while more things thudded and cracked, followed by yelling that definitely must've been Bucky's.

" _Throw it out god damn now! Get to the bloody window!_ " Her eyes met with Nick's, whose danced in puzzlement, but she knew what was going on, his muffins that he had forgotten had stood too much time in the heated room and had spoiled, which got her to giggle and tilt her head at Nick for what he had accidently done. They deserved it for yelling all the time.

She saw Nick's motion for her to come closer as he stood off the bed and scratched his arm. He didn't visibly want them to hear her and as he leaned for her to get to his ear, which she grabbed, her whisper found its way into his mind, "They found your lunch snack."

With a satisfied smirk of impishness, she lightly moved away from him and awaited his words to finish, words that were cut in two by the high-decibel concert next door, which would always prick on her nerves but not this time, this time she found the situation rather funny and worth it. But words didn't fly right away, his tongue moved around his fangs of bone and his mouth met several wet slaps, while her ears caught a rumble below his chest. He wasn't that complicated after all…

"We're going out," his whisper bounced around the room and got her absorbed into her thoughts as to where he had an idea for them to go. She was up to the suggestion because of the want to hang out, even if he was being an asshole. That didn't seem that bad now as he had bounds and she had her paws. But even so, that didn't take anything out the fact that she was mildly taken aback.

"Huh? _Wh_ — where we going?" However, in her muddlement, she forgot to keep her voice down and had just said that normally, to which shuffle of steps came closer to the wall with these loud mumbles that were like tiny annoying goblins.

" _BUNNY! You left this here, didn't you?!_ " The penetrating voice got her to jump in place with her heart doing the same. Did they want her to go in there like last time and show them how to behave like civilized mammals?

"No, no I didn't. And could you both stop yelling, I was sleeping."

" _No? So it was that idiot fox friend of yours! Because of HIM, Bucky ruptured my damn ears!_ " Now, she maybe would've given Pronk a pass if he had said that about her, but because it was aimed at Nick, her stomach tightened in detest from the words of harshness which now audibly carried the notes of malice, malice that wasn't misplaced but unacceptable. Her mouth opened and her throat contracted, yet she stopped when Nick's voice rang around the room.

"C'mon guys! This isn't something to get our tails in a twist about. Just a small misunderstanding. That's all!" Nick apologized in the silkiest way possible and she looked him with disbelief of how his voice sounded so unthreatening and apologetic… But then came another cry, which was instilled with ire, it got her fingers to curl and teeth to scrunch underneath the pressure of her indignation.

" _A small misunderstanding, that so foxy? Why don't you come in here, and EAT that small misunderstanding!?_ " That was it! Her feet carried her like an unstable bullet towards her door which she unlocked and opened in an instant. They weren't going to behave like that on her watch. _Foxy?_ He had done a simple mistake and the cost wasn't going to be prejudiced words and malignant attitudes. Her paw bashed against the door like a hammer and she awaited with a thumping leg, while her eyes were trying to drill through the door's wooden surface. She felt a presence watching her but didn't even twitch as the footsteps neared the door and it finally opened with Bucky taking the podium in a very angry stature.

Her eyes squinted even more and her scowl formed very hard wrinkles around her mouth which made her look older as well as dangerous, even if her teeth were made for eating grass. It wasn't her teeth that were weapons of pain, it were her legs and paws and she even cracked her knuckles without even blinking at the kudu who hadn't changed anything. Her paws went to her sides in fists and her head lowered itself towards her shoulders which expressed her hostility at those who dared to cross the line of civility.

She took a step forward and her ears detected a faint gasp from her apartment's door but even if her eyes were stingingly-dry, she didn't dare forfeit the battle that Bucky wasn't visibly-yet losing. But then her paw struck forward with unseen speeds and the kudu flinched backwards as if a car was going to hit him, yet she had stopped herself with a put-up smile and her paw opened slowly in a gesture as to him to give her what was required. Her neighbor lost the want to continue and, with a sigh of exasperation, went inside while she finally glanced at Nick who was staring at her with shock and she winked at him with real vibrancy.

" _Only talk, no ball—_ "

" _Shut it!_ " Her smile feasted on her face and she stifled her laughter as she had shown her neighbours that they couldn't mess with her and if they did, they would be very sorry for it, which was what she did that productive night. Steps began coming back and she forced all her positive force down towards her feet that began moving her weight around from the sudden flush. The dissatisfactory kudu stopped at a safe distance and as he met her unrelenting gaze one more time, his paw reached for hers and the carton bag was dropped onto it to which she huffed loudly and pulled the bag closer to herself. Bucky rolled his eyes and grabbed the door as to close it but she had to say one last thing.

"Less noise." Her sneer filled the corridor with claustrophobia and her eyebrows could be called angry little gremlins as they were greatly disfigured. Bucky gulped and sealed the entrance without even uttering a single word but the door wasn't slammed, it closed very quietly and yelling didn't follow by, just chatter that she couldn't distinguish which was exactly what she wanted all along.

Her body rotated and she marched back from hence she came with a smelly bag in her paws. There stood Nick with amusement around his initials and she wanted to smile at him but chose to act otherwise as to get him second-guessing himself, thus when she was to pass by him, she pushed the bag into his stomach and he _ooofed_ from the mild impact. The desk was reached shortly after and she took everything that was going to be needed for their trip to the giant world outside, including his own phone that seemed rather old, even if it appeared to be with a touchscreen.

"You might wanna put a coat on." Why'd she need that? Was he going to show her his pawpsicle stash?

"We going to Tundratown?" she asked without further overthinking.

"No but—"

"Then let's go!" She didn't give him the opportunity to talk, as she quickly trailed a few brushes around her head and ears, and then sprayed some scent-mask around places of need, and then pushed him out the apartment and locked it tight so that nobody else would have to feel sorry for the place she was living in.

"Suit yourself, Carrots." _Aghh_ … his greasy smirk when saying those words drove her fingers to madness but she kept moving on towards the stairs with a vitalized fox behind her whose paws were in his pockets. But as he got to her side what was added made her insides to flutter, "Don't be trying to snuggle again with me when you get cold." Something needed to distract him, so she could compose her embarrassment that needed time to be tamed, thus she reached for his phone from her pocket and pulled out his free paw, that wasn't holding the bag, in which she put the aging piece of technology.

"You wish," she locked it down with a mocking snort that hid the travesty of her feelings that were being butchered in order for her to remain strong.

Nick Wilde, the mammal that had made her want to do things that were of no priority for such a long time.

 _Annoying… cocky… irresi—_

* * *

"Nick, stop burping!…" But Nick himself couldn't cease doing that as the acid in his stomach had gone up, as he had tried to eat one of the spoiled muffins because he was very hungry at the time. But as his tongue and insides showed him that it wasn't going to work with he had dumbly planned, both of them went through a fast food joint from where a fat and greasy burger was bought, a burger that had made Judy to confront him about his eating habits and the state of his health, to which he had offered her a bite from the outstanding meat. Yea, she wasn't enthusiastic about his offer at all, more like gagged with sounds of disgust.

"Wha… Can't help it, Fluff," he kinda lied because he was doing them loudly on purpose as to rile his companion up because he just loved her adorable reactions, which she always sought to control, thus he released yet another irritating burp.

"If you hadn't eaten those nasty burgers, you would've! How can you even put that in your mouth…?" Here she went again, it was like her determination to get him to change such a major part of himself was just without end. It got his lungs to contract as laughter streamed up his throat.

"Because… I'm a predator maybe?" -he laughed again and ruffled the fur on her head which earned him a slap on the wrist that was rather gentle- "… other than that… You missed your chance to taste greatness." The gagging she intentionally made got his nerves to jump in joy, while the artistic approach of her paws going around her throat just furthered that bliss within.

"Normal bunnies don't eat meat!" she repeated the same thing as before and his smirk took an even stranger element, to which her eyebrows went into disarray and she asked with hesitancy, "What?"

"You're a normal bunny?" There wasn't an easy way out for her and his retort had visibly stricken her with an answer that wouldn't be to her satisfaction, and he knew that all too well, thus grinned widely at her while they continued towards their journey that she didn't have a clue where it'd end. "And you can't say you don't like it unless you've tried! Try everything right?" –the quote he had put in between made her ears to fall and him to lick his lips because he felt that slight hunger again- "So juicy and tas—"

"I'm not going to eat meat. You can't make me change my mind!" Her bold retort made his lips to curl devilishly as she had just entrapped herself.

"See? We think alike!" His paws flung in the air with the delight that she couldn't continue trying to drill the topic, while now he could do that to her. Her scoff was music to his ears and for the first time he saw her put her paws in her pockets. Such small things to be so gleeful, it had been quite some time. Her temper was way better than Finnick's and there was just a lot more self-control.

"Whatever… why're we in Sahara Square?" Ah, it was normal for her to ask that but the surprise wasn't going to be such if he were to tell her, thus he shrugged his shoulders in a detached fashion.

"Patience my fluffy, Fluff. We're almost there."

"You said that when we were at Central you jerk!"

"I was talking about the diner then."

"Oh sure you were." Her head turned away from him and he could see a segment from her frown, when it appeared, as she was reluctant to look at him, which was probably her bunny tactic as to get him to succumb and tell her where they were heading to. Well, she was just now going to find out, as he moved to the side of the curb and partially entered an alley, while Judy's scorn had visibly made her blindsighted as she was continuing of walking but this time alone.

 _How did you fail to step in that cement…_

Thoughts about the recent past aside, he whistled at her as to stop her march into the unknown and that she did with a hasty turn, which was met with high amounts of visible bafflement, while he motioned to her with his paw as to come back which drained the disorientation away as she jogged towards him.

"What's this?" They hadn't seen many mammals, as they got closer to the walls that separated Tundratown and Sahara Square but that usually wouldn't have happened if they weren't in the more secluded and abandoned part of town.

"Come on. This is the place I'm going to eat you" -all he heard was a scoff- "… you wanted to know, now you'll see it with your own eyes." He didn't know if she'd follow him like this because who'd trust a fox in the first place. Yet she had shown him time and time again, which had broken all his negative expectations that were usually reserved. The bunny lacked fear and that was something she needed to make a compromise upon if she were to make it out alive.

"See what?!" There was nothing to say because he could guess what she'd do, which could end up in getting him in a lot of trouble and possibly killed, so he began moving towards the end of the alley, with a perplexed and slightly fuming bunny behind him, who was muttering something to herself. He didn't believe that someone had ever kept her in the dark with something so long, and it was just a luminous prize to witness. The place was unsavory and unkempt as the graffiti on the wall showed specism, hate and sexual contents, while one specifically caught his eye as it spelled, ' _A.C.A.B._ ' which was ironical as the bunny was a cop herself but he just couldn't chuckle because he'd probably earn a death glare, thus he imagined himself laughing inside his head.

The trash was crawling everywhere and the smell was just grotesque for his sensitive nose. At least she didn't have to go through such mind torture like him. Cables hung from the residential buildings, some hanging loose, while others were severed long ago with cobwebs and dustiness around the smooth rubber surface as well as plastic bags that had been caught and were rustling from the wind that was starting to get colder. The place was like Happytown but it lacked mammals, which was the only piece of the atmosphere that was missing.

Near the end of the alley, where there was a street after, a big dumpster stood which was overflowing with thrown out junk. Nobody would come to collect it because the residents wouldn't pay their taxes for their waste. Well how could they when there weren't much residents to begin with? This was the place where he had heard that an exchange was going to happen and this was the opportune spot to watch the events unfold from, as they would have perfect cover for their bodies as well as their scents as the trash just fumed with disgusting contents.

An old warehouse stood behind the road, that had a lot of sand around the gutter, a warehouse that had been built from sandstone as well as cement, a very strange combination that was evident as some chunks of its walls had chipped away from it, while the fences that stood in front of it were rusty and battered, as on some places they were toppled and snapped. This was the edge of Sahara Square's Canyontown, an area that had been ravaged by crime and gang wars that had made many of its inhabitants to just move out and flee the conflicts of mammals who didn't care about anyone but their own personal interests. Like most mammals did…

The police could've intervened but Nick knew that they didn't want to waste resources so they had let the gangs to kill each other until there was nothing left. Thus it did with the emptiness now being the sole reminder of those conflicts, conflicts without winners, conflicts which ended in unnecessary graves and blood. He could tell her the story, in a short way, as he didn't exactly know when the event, he was waiting for, would happen, thus they now needed to be extremely silent.

It was late and the red sky was starting to lose its light with the last rays, being visible on the tall wall's ends, walls which's big fans had stopped working, as the district would acclimate to coldness so that the nocturnal mammals wouldn't have an issue with dying from hotness. The walls always looked so tall with their protruding extensions that had curvy ends on the tops, while the middle had these metallic ribs that held giant cables and pipes up and down the tall structure of the future. Nick knew that many parts of the walls held a lot of machinery inside as well as moving parts because his eyes had actually once seen the side of the wall to open.

It had been so loud and terrifying but it probably had been some kind of a mistake as the moving parts closed as quickly as they had begun opening, and the outlines of the links between could be seen after that. These parts were meant for something else, these parts hid something from the world around and those outlines had been obscured after several days by plastering that sandy texture all around and giving the wall that same medieval look as if it had been just a normal and simple wall of towered sandstone, while hiding the beast within that was capable of moving and breathing. They had been created to contain the different climates but there was something else as well, something secretive that the public wasn't supposed to know.

A tug on his sleeve got his thoughts to crash and his attention to move onto Judy who was now waiting for him to explain himself, but as he moved his gaze away from her as to start talking, she again broke his expectancy of her behavior, as she surprised him when her paws reached for the fur on his head and got him to submit because he didn't like it when his skin would cry out in pain. His baffled greens met her fiery lilacs which were glaring with a terrifying amount.

"What're we doing here, Nick?!" she more like ordered to be told.

"Waiting," was his short response and his demeanor turned into a delightful one as he could play with her a bit as to kill the time until what was to happen would happen.

"Waiting for what?" Her paw wasn't letting go of his head and even when he tried to lightly move away, that pulled onto his hairs and got him to grit his teeth mildly, while her dissatisfaction with his attitude was beginning to lighten up goosebumps around his skin, yet her snorted.

"You mean who." Her impatience was emphasized when she pulled harshly with a whimper fleeing his shut mouth. No-no, this was now a moment to redden her face while giving her some of the crumbs as to at least not give her an excuse to pull again.

"The one for whom you wanted to know so much that you seduced me into your apartment," he answered and grinned madly, flustering the doe so much that she let him go and took a step back with a twitching nose.

She tried to defend herself and tell him otherwise with confidence but it seemed that the day was not today. "I-I-I… that w-wasn't… I didn't seduce you!" she blurted out, to which he snickered as her paws hugged her while her chin was kept down defensively. Words could always say one thing but the body always contradicted the information if it were false. It was so amusing to experience those facts with his own eyes.

"Tell that to the judge," he retorted and she turned her back on him with aggravation. It was funny how bashfulness could always disarray her cool and get her blushingly-embarrassed. Well, his words had been carried with smugness but he wasn't feeling much differently than her, as he could remember that sweet scent of excitement when he had woken up with a bunny ear inside his mouth. That had never happened in his life and when he had grasped what was done, there was this tingling delight around his body that screamed at him for more.

It was thrilling, yet it was haunting as well because he saw such feelings as a prompt to vulnerability. Judy had, after all, given him a promise to catch him if he continued down the road he had taken, and he wasn't making any plans of stopping soon. So complicated and misplaced… Sometimes he cursed himself for being unable to fully control himself as scents and looks would just get to him…

 _Don't let them see that they get to you… not even her…_

"Don't worry, Fluff. Just pulling your ears" –her ears sprung and she faced him with lack of amusement to which he _ahemed_ nervously - "now… we're going to wait for your bestie, Duke… If he comes of course. Then you can see what he does in his spare time. You up to that?" Nick didn't know why he even asked, as Judy jumped in blissful surprise and closed the distance between them, being a tad too close to his comfort zone, again. "Okay… grab one of those boxes and sit behind the dumpster." The bunny was as fast as the light and pulled out the dry dumpster two boxes which she folded easily. He didn't expect her to take one for him and yet she did. Always so selfless and energetic. Her moxie was jerking on his lips, so he could smile, but he forced himself to smirk because the sensations were starting to attach themselves onto his being. He didn't want that!

They put them close to the dumpster's edge and Judy was to sit right next to it but Nick slapped his tongue and gestured that she was to sit on the inside to which she frowned but he crossed his arms and after some glaring, she surrendered. They sat and Nick used the carton as to shield his clothes from the dirtiness, while he leaned against it, and coughed as to get Judy's attention so she could mirror him and remain pristine. The distance between them wasn't a lot as she had moved closer due to her visible excitement of seeing what was to come, while his tail acted as a divider, so she wouldn't climb onto him and smuggle him with misplaced feelings.

"How do you know of this place? Didn't you say that you that you weren't in this business?"

"Nooo… but! One of my… associates… had explained to me from where I could get additional… material for my _legal_ business." He could tell her everything and still be in the clear because it simply was her word against his while he didn't believe that she would go behind his back as from everything he had seen from her. Yet, that didn't mean that he wasn't going to be cautious. If he let his guard down just for a moment he could divulge things with irreversible peril, while helping her felt like the right thing to do.

"You know why the area's abandoned?" To his question he received only silence and unswerving attention. "Gang wars… stopped an year ago. Most of them are dead and the mammals that lived here just don't want to come back… Wanna know what the police did?..." –her dejection for the incoming answer told him all- "Nothing…" Nick didn't want to increase the despair in her but she needed to know and understand, there was no other way for reality to sink in otherwise. That was what the government did, there was no justice for all, there was no aid for all, there was always weighting the options and choosing whatever suited the masses most. A single death was a tragedy but more than that were just statistics, right?

His wording got her to sigh sadly and shake her head. At least she wasn't getting incredibly surprised anymore. "What'll we see?"

"Who knows. They could just come here to talk, to exchange drugs, money, guns… or who knows what else" -Nick didn't give Judy a chance to say anything- "but I want you to be as quiet as a mouse. If they catch us… we're done for. Got it?"

"Nick, that was speciest!" she scolded in a normal tone which wasn't what Nick had asked her of.

"What did I just say?" he whispered with a face distilled of humor to which she rolled her eyes.

"Fine..." she answered quietly and leaned into the dumpster but scooped closer to his tail. Why was she doing that…

Darkness overcame the land, the only light that could be seen was the one from the half-white moon, which was seemingly in its first quarter, and the street lights, most of which weren't working in the area Nick and Judy were at. The sandstone building that were all around the place were dark and gritty and looked uninviting as there was no life around the place, just silence and abandonment. The sidewalks were dirty and some of the sandstone slabs had popped out of their previous state, thus leaving holes from where dirt gave life to nature. The silence accompanied with the distant rumblings of vehicles got Nick to want to say something as to just kill the time.

"You've seen the climate walls, right?" The unexpected question made Judy's brow to go up.

"Yeaaaa?" He glanced at her for a moment with a light snort.

"When I was in the area in this district… quite some years ago… something crazy happened. You can see the wall here looks as if it was made by stacking rocks but… It's alive. I saw it move… there were these gears and hydraulics… The wall began opening! And there was this loud alarm… like the one for natural disasters but different… so different and chilling…" Judy was staring at him with hints of disbelief, and then, just like that she pushed through the barrier that was his tail and balanced herself on her knee which hugged his legs and got him startled while she peeked around the obscurity that was the stinking dumpster.

 _She's doing it on purpose… I… Ughhhh!_

Her scent replaced that disgusting smell and the closeness of her body to his was making him hotter than before and it was a good luck that he hadn't brought his coat for the day or he'd be like a steaming pond. Her paw reached for his shoulder and she grabbed onto it as she moved further as to see more of the wall he had been talking about, yet her rump bumped into his side and she managed to stir the sensations that were just uncontrollable.

"Do you mind?" he hissed with irritation that she wasn't respecting his personal space most of the time and that got her to turn around but her face was calculating as if she wasn't satisfied with what she had seen but she moved backwards and the pressure around his thighs subsided while her warmth scurried away from him.

"Can we enter them?" Of course they could but security was tight as a virgin asshole. Nobody with authorization could sneak through the front entrance and even if they did try, the trouble they would get into was going to be irreversible. It may be possible through the sewers, there were some lines through which he had smuggled… goods… but she wouldn't be up to that and so wasn't he. That'd be risking his tail, risks that he had forsaken to take after his meeting with death's scythe.

"Not in a normal way."

"Soooo… there is a way?" She didn't just do that, oh this bunny was just… predictable... yet… unpredictable. And that was just filling his belly with warming amusement.

"Weren't you a straight arrow cop?" She instantly flinched and turned her gaze away from him while a paw reached for her ear.

"Just asking is all!" She raised her voice and Nick quickly _shhhshed_ her while his heart throbbed in trepidation. This wasn't a leisure tour, if they were to be caught, it was game over.

"If there's a will, there's always a way, Fluff," his snarky retort which he delivered with a snicker seemed to have been understood as she snorted and snuggled into herself further with a light smile. After all, the temperatures were going down and her sleeveless wine-colored shirt wasn't going to cut it, he had told her to take a coat but she had been the usual stubborn bunny. He could offer her his tail but that got his muzzle to twitch as if needles of embarrassment had stabbed him all around. It was impossible to keep composure while the things he were to joke about were actually real…

There were such nights that came to mind, where he'd just go somewhere where there weren't any mammals and he'd confine to himself and just let the world go by as he roamed inside his head in peace. Such moments would drain all his stress and fears from the future and get him to relax, to let it go and move on. Loneliness was something that he adopted and integrated into himself as it just felt… right. Just like the pessimistic view that just came naturally to him. He never was the one but the conditions around him just changed his past-self.

But now, now he wasn't lonely as the greatly-energetic bunny was sitting just next to him and the want to be alone just wasn't reappearing, there was no boredom from her presence nor harsh irritation because she just had this great heart and adorable, yet stiff, personality which just made her stick out in front of his eyes, eyes that would usually read someone and go astray as disinterest would dawn him quickly. The lights on the streets hummed into life but not all of them as some were just broken. Darkness had come and the alley was getting dimmer and dimmer, which wasn't a problem for him but it sure was for Judy as he could see from his peripheral that her peepers were rapidly moving or squinting. It appeared that she didn't like her senses dulled, hell, who did?

His exhales became solid manifestations and even with his thicker fur, some discontent crawled inside of him and got him to huddle his legs closer to his stomach while he contemplated if he should put his blanket across himself, yet when his eyes moved to the bushy pillow, what he saw got his heart to prickle as Judy was now shivering with gritted teeth. Yea, some time had passed but she hadn't said anything as if she didn't want to give in and seem like a dumb bunny, which he would've definitely teased her about. The awkward night near the bridge, the crazy wake-up call in her bed, her scent… Everything added up to something more than just two mammals hanging around. But that didn't mean nothing to him, it had to not.

With a sigh of exasperation that got his jaw to move around, he moved his tail in front of the shivering bunny and awaited for her reaction. Her eyes stared at the bushy blanket and her head slowly moved until she met his annoyed eyes. "Told you so… just… just take it…" He didn't like mammals to touch his tail so he never allowed them to do so but he could make an exception for a mammal like her because he just wanted to as that feeling that pushed him to help just bubbled with intensity.

"I'm fine…" she returned with audible bitterness which got him to tilt his head at the bunny who was being too prideful for her own good.

"You're shi—"

"I said I'm fine!" she interjected harshly which got his ears to fall and his mouth to hang open. Why was she being hostile about this? He was just offering her comfort even after she had discarded his warning. That filled his mind with irk and he scoffed as his head moved away from her without even wanting to try again, thus his tail moved away from her and hugged his front which trapped his escaping warmth and got him to readjust himself while she visibly tried to appear _fine_ which was definitely a prideful lie. At least both of them were in the reception of frustration and hesitation but neither wanted to acknowledge the fact that it was there…

The sound of electricity short circuiting got both of them to get at attention and Nick quickly peeked as to see what the hell was going on. It was a lamp from down the street and it was sizzling with bright blue color, until it stopped and the glass cover fell onto the sidewalk with a loud crash that sent glass everywhere around its impact. He felt Judy to again try climb onto him but this time she wasn't warm. He put a paw in front of her and gestured with his head that it was nothing, yet she pushed against his paw, nevertheless, and again was in that same position. At least now he knew that it wasn't anything on purpose.

After she had seen that nothing was there, she sighed and moved away from him but this time slowly while the coldness of her limbs was draining the spots of contact. Why was she being such a stubborn bunny?! Yet, she got off him and got into the same position as she glued her legs close to herself. The darkness was now nigh and he could faintly see the stars above that glistered like teary eyes. But it just wasn't like at the Meadowlands, here the view wasn't majestic because there was pollution even if the city was revolutionary. Not every area was rich and kept in prime condition. Not here, not Happytown, not many of the docks…

It all came to the government that took the citizens' taxes and promised to use them for bettering the city, yet that wasn't the case with everywhere as they were being funneled mainly at hot zones, which was incredibly strategic and unfair but what was he to do? Try to make the world a better place? Hah, impossible… He had believed the same thing, only to be show time and time again that it was just an easy way to get hurt and trampled until he'd allow himself to see at last, to forsake the delusions and accept reality as it was, not as he wanted it to be.

Breeze entered the lonely alley and got the hairs of his cheek to rustle and him to hide himself better behind the big container of discardment. It sure was chilly and the more he sat, the more it worsened. That was when a low but noticeable growl reached his ears, one that didn't sound predatory and had a lot of desperation in it. It was Judy whose chin was outright shivering and it appeared that she just couldn't control herself anymore. That state was all too familiar to him as sometimes his body would become oversensitive like hers at this very moment, yet she was still continuing her decline at his offer that he himself had put forward.

His mouth curled into a frown and even if he wanted to let her be to her choice, a protective instinct came about and got him to, without warning, scoop to her and bump into her side which instantly began draining his burning blood's contents, while his tail got in front of her and pushed against her chest. She didn't react and he didn't even look at her because of his irritation of what he had done, as the closeness was just uncomfortable and annoying. But she hadn't moved away, hadn't hit him nor had made a comment about his move.

That was when he felt her readjust herself closer to him and her head to lean against his shoulder while his tail was grabbed and put around her. Yea, the only barrier between them now was the arm that was holding his knees from extending forward and she yawned happily into him. It seemed that her pride had at last lost and she wasn't going to be sick for tomorrow's job. He had to just get her to her _spacious_ home safe because, after all, he had gotten her here and she was his responsibility.

It was so strange to have someone close to him again, someone who wasn't secretly trying to stomp him and get him to feel miserable. She had made her intentions clear from the start and there was always the possibility of her being false but it was just so small, he'd probably win the lottery first than to get betrayed by her. That got him to relax from the tension and to breathe deeply as he tried to rest until what they were there for happened.

The scent of bunny and her newly accumulated warmth began bringing the feeling of comfort and it was chasing away the need for loneliness that he usually craved for, while her presence near him and her slow breaths got him to feel alive and appreciate life itself. It felt jolly and fresh, while his eyes felt heavy and yawny, so he closed them for a moment with slapping lips.

A loud bang of metal got his lids to fly open and his heart to start pumping faster, while there was this tension all around his muscles and the manifestation of fatigue in a shroud of cloud. His paw tried to get him to move but was being held by something warm and moving, which appeared to by Judy's own paws as she was stirring awake as well. Had they fallen asleep? How much time had they been there and what was that loud bang? With groans of annoyance, they both met each other's glances and without any bashfulness but actual irritation, Nick peeked again as to see what was going on.

The warehouse's garage door had half been opened with boxes and pallets being barely visible from the light on the street. In front of that metal door stood a very impatient red kangaroo who had a brown hoodie with grey jeans as well as a red bandana that had been wrapped around the top of its head. The reddish-brown mammal went slowly to the curb and looked around. It appeared to be a female as her physique was rather thin, tho everything was possible. She raised her hoodie and pulled out a revolver from her jeans which's chamber she inspected and shortly after tucked the gun from where it was taken.

Judy whispered from underneath Nick's head which kinda startled him as he hadn't sensed her presence, "Nick, firearms are forbidden to be ow—" His head moved down so that his muzzle lightly collided against the top of her head, being just between her ears.

"Quiet, Judy!" he forced his tone to be harsh as to make her understand the gravity of the situation they were both in, and using her real name made it crystal clear for her as she didn't utter another sound and remained still so that their cover wouldn't be blown with painful led.

There was nothing for some time until an approaching sound of an engine could be heard coming from down the road, until it was loud enough which was followed by a black sedan, with fully tinted windows, to climb on top the old curb and to stop just before the kangaroo. It wasn't an expensive car but it spoke class and a real taste. It spoke influence and power. The engine died and both front doors opened simultaneously which exposed a familiar mammal with a black trench coat and a black bandana which was obscuring its face. Duke…

The other mammal was a black bear that wasn't that big, yet Duke couldn't even reach his chest in terms of height. The bigger predator had a black fedora with a rose on its side; a velvet pea coat and dark-blue trousers. His face wasn't obscured and was showing a nasty scar across his face but Nick's eyes couldn't really see the details, as the bear wasn't very close. The bear was a clear representation of intimidation as he could remember seeing such appearances with Mr. Big's grunts. Was this mammal one of them? The bear reached in his pocket and pulled out a big cigar that was slowly light up and put inside his mouth which was showing a very bad mood in the form of enmity.

The female kangaroo didn't act very amused as well and tried to say in a scolding tone, " _You blokes're late a—_ "

" _Don't stretch your pouch too much, Roo_ " quipped Duke in a mocking tone that managed to even get Nick to wince. Yea, he had forgotten how greasy and aggressive the weasel could be, well, he wanted to forget but the bunny under his muzzle had pulled him back in the world of calamities. He wasn't going to participate directly tho, no-no… He sensed movement underneath and slid back to his original hiding spot, with a nose-twitching Judy who showed him her phone and gestured her idea to record what was happening to which he gave her a smile and resumed watching. Overseeing never hurt, it was eventful.

" _Stop calling me THAT, mate!_ " the kangaroo yelled and he saw her reach for where her gun was but neither Duke nor the puffing bear really reacted in any way, which got his shoulders to release some of the tension. Such situations got heated very easily and Nick didn't want to be a witness if it was to brew out of control. Such things just had a bad influence on rest.

But he heard quiet and rather adorable grumbling from underneath, which got his thoughts to stray, and when he took a look at her phone, the recording showed just faint images of the warehouse's top, the camera wasn't a good one and it just needed a lot more light than the cheap street one that was even flickering with the sickness of epilepsy. Well, at least she was going to witness it, the concrete evidence could wait, while she couldn't even pinpoint any charges at Duke as he was obscured and looked like a different mammal.

" _Ok, ok, don't go hopping mad_ " –Duke moved closer to her- "now, let's get to business. Ya got it?" he asked with a glance towards the hostile bear who nodded. Why had that just happened?

" _Course I do,_ " she answered and crossed her arms while waiting with evident scorn but nobody reacted or said anything. If Nick had a notebook, he could've even sketched them as they were like damn statues. " _Ya're slambangled or what, mals? Waiting the sun to throw up!?_ " That was when the black bear grunted hoarsely and raised his clenched fist.

" _We ain't here to move your shit, busta. Get hustlin' before I split yo'damn wig,_ " the bear ordered with an incredibly discordant voice which sounded sickly, very sickly discomforting. Nick wasn't even a tad surprised when the kangaroo took a few steps back and hurried inside the warehouse, nobody wanted to cross a bear when they were way smaller. She may have had a gun but he didn't believe that it'd be powerful enough to blow through the bear's thick head. At least that wasn't going to happen. The light from Judy's phone re-ignited and when he snuck a peak, his fur electrified from shock. She was dialing the ZPD!

Had she even listened to him when he had explained her how to proceed? Calling them through her own phone here would mean that Duke would instantly catch onto her, she was throwing a net around herself and was going to drag him into it. His paw snatched the phone out her paws and agilely stopped the call to which she stared at him with surprise, until she tried to take her phone back but he was shaking his head violently as to her dumb decision. Hesitancy took over her body and when he reached for her paw to give her the phone, she sighed sadly and nodded.

It appeared that the kangaroo had finished loading the boxes with unknown contents into the sedan's trunk and was now heading in between the two mammals to probably receive her payment. The hostile bear stared for some moments and reached for his pocket. Wait, they weren't going to… It was a large sum of bills… Thank God. With a huff of smoke towards her face which got her to cough in misery, the bear began slowly counting with loud grumbles and groans that sounded incredibly annoying to Nick, while Judy's ears fell from between his muzzle and glued to her back.

But Duke was acting incredible strange and suspicious, why was he looking around the street? He was even creating distance between himself and the female. That was when what Nick feared began happening. Duke pulled out his gun from inside his coat with a silencer that he began slowly screwing on. No-no-no, this was exactly what wasn't supposed to happen, they weren't supposed to see this… It just had to be a normal pick and run, not murder and dealing with unwanted individuals.

 _The hell did I get her into… The hell I got myself into!_

The adrenaline kicked into him with the throbbing of his heart going up insanely, while his mind tried to find the best solution to the problem that they were soon going to enter. Duke finished putting on the silencer and scratched his eyes with his knuckles. They had to go, they had to move right damn now and fast. But there was no time, Duke turned around with the gun behind his back and aimed his eyes directly at the impatient kangaroo.

" _Roo, your services are no longer required,_ " Duke declared soundly and instantly pointed the deadly steel at her temple. She gasped at the horrifying sight.

But before she was to pull her revolver, her last stuttering words exited her mouth " _W-w-wha—_ " And with that came the muffled _pop_ sound that breathed out from the murderous nostril of the gun and the kangaroo fell instantly on the cold pavement with a thud, while her red bandana untied itself because the bullet had probably pierced the whole way back to her skull.

 _FUCK!_

Judy had tensed right away and he knew what was going to happen next, if this was her first time seeing murder, she wasn't going to be rational about it, no one was. His paws reached as quickly as possible for her mouth and with his whole body, he pulled her behind their protection and safety but the resistance he was met with scared him. Her muffled yells and screeches were almost going to go through but he pulled hard and trapped her with her legs, yet she trashed and squirmed so much that it actually was greatly painful as his muscles strained even if she was smaller than him.

 _What've they been feeding you!_

He had to contain her, if not for him at least for her because they weren't going to get far if they were spotted. He was stronger but that didn't mean he could keep up with her increasing efforts that fell like that because he was starting to lose his strength. Her paws were pulling at his fur while her head was trying to hit him but he kept her close as well as himself and endured the torture that was just necessary. He needed to keep her safe, she was his responsibility.

"Fluff… Fluff… Judy! Calm down, please- you've got to… They'll kill u— stop, I beg you!"

 **"** _The fuck's that? Go check for stray cats!_ **"** They had heard them. They had heard them! He couldn't continue wrestling Judy, because his muscles were on fire, she had to stop immediately.

"Judy… I'll get us out of here! I promise! Trust me! Just stop-stop!" His strong whisper was directly inside her ears and he just begged for a miracle and her to stop because if not, that meant death. He understood what she wanted, what she craved for, it was justice but she couldn't serve it with a hole inside of her head and worms crawling around her body. That wasn't how changed happened, that was how futility continued to exist! He wasn't going to allow her to die, she wasn't going to become a body without warmth, a body with no spark.

If he were to resort to something else, he was going to just to save her from death but her resistance reduced and after a short moment it extinguished entirely, to which he removed his paws and moved her away from him while his head looked around for anything that could get them out of there. There was a lot of trash and what was he? A fox, and many foxes were homeless because they couldn't easily find legal income.

 _Slippin' Nicky!_

Yes, that could work. That was going to work! He began removing the buttons of his shirt with great haste and he was even going to rip them off when he heard light steps coming closer to the dumpster but he was on the last one and thus it wasn't necessary.

" _N-n-nick, w-what are—_ " He didn't give her time to react or explain himself, there was none! His paws embraced her and he pulled her close to the corner where the dumpster met the wall, while he dragged carton boxes in his wake. He quickly put his shirt around her and because it was bigger, it managed to almost cover her fully. He pushed her to the ground gently but quickly and pulled her to himself as best as it was possible, his bare chest hugging her head and his paws folded her ears inside his shirt.

The steps were almost there, he needed to seal the hustle, thus he moved his tail underneath her legs and curled his as to hide her as best as possible while he put a few carton boxes over himself and grabbed a few bottles which he poured the leftover contents over his chest as to hide her scent. The alcohol didn't have an intensity anymore tho, he had to rely on his stronger musk to hide her essence… That was why he rubbed his chin into his shirt with his mark as that would definitely help a lot. He could feel her shivering into him and he scooped even closer to her, not that it was possible anymore as she was glued to him and very well-hidden by his fast efforts.

 _I'll get you out of here…_

The steps were there, thus he closed his eyes and calmed his breathing, even if his chest wanted to explode from panic, while Judy was quivering underneath him but not enough for her presence to be evident. The movement stopped, he knew that the mammal had spotted him, thus the hustle began as he groaned loudly and licked his lips loudly and sloppily. He had to act as the usual drunken scumbag who had passed out. But there was no reaction from the mammal that was looking at him, or was he pointing something at him? The prickle of fear got his confidence to start draining, yet he needed to go on, to harden himself. He had to hold onto Judy and give her energy so that she wouldn't break apart.

She was here because of him… If he were to be shot right now then so be it but she had to remain underneath, she had to. A very piercing blow went against his back and he coughed in pain but he had to remain sleeping, he had to continue the charade, thus he groaned in irritation and burped loudly after which he smiled and reached for one of the bottles which he hugged closer to his shirt, where Judy was no longer shivering, she was motionless and if he didn't know that she was alive, he'd guess that she had died of a heart attack.

"Fucking drunk piece of shi—" That was Duke, the voice wasn't that discordant and hoarse. Nick hoped that he wouldn't be able to catch Judy's scent, he hoped with all his heart.

" _The'fuck's taking so long?_ " yelled the bear.

"Just a drunken fox. Can't even get him to wake up," the weasel yelled back but instead of moving away, Nick felt him start removing the carton boxes from him which put him on overdrive, he had to hide her anyhow. Maybe he could try and wrestle Duke out of his gun? Ha! There weren't such capabilities, he wasn't a fighter. Faking coldness, Nick angled himself further into her and knew that she could feel his weight starting to crush in but that was the only way. That was when he felt the cold silencer to touch his ribs and his eyes almost opened from dread but he just yawned again and smashed his lips.

 _Get away you damn animal!_

" _C'mon, busta! Boss's waiting and I ain't telling him why we're late!_ " Duke sniffed a few times, each inhale making Nick's organs to wince but then Duke grumbled in anger and spat after which the steps began moving away and towards the street. The stress leaked out of his body and all his tensed muscles relaxed as his body moved away from Judy's but he accidently pushed a bottle which made a lot of glassy noise, yet the car's loud engine had already roared to life and a harsh thud of a door marked the end of this sinful night.

 _Thank you… thank you… thank you…_

He pulled himself and Judy to a sitting position and unwrapped her from his shirt but when he saw her state, his nerves bathed in anxiety because her expression was bleak and her eyes were empty, like she wasn't even there, like she had detached herself from the world, like she had died from the inside and had surrendered to care.

He moved close to her ear and whispered with a strained voice as his body was shivering from the surge of energy that had been pulled from the instinct to live as well as protect. "Judy, we've got to go. Duke'll try to cover this up. We mustn't be here!" She didn't respond, just stared into nothingness while he stood up and put on his shirt which now had her essence and somehow he liked that new addition. There was no drive to button it up as his attention was greatly more focused on her state. She was crestfallen and this was a moment where a great part of her was chipped away, and he was to blame but at the same time knew that it was inevitable and was glad that he was the one who could help her cope with it and not someone else, someone who could've used that moment to crush her entirely or take advantage of her. The idea sickened him to the guts…

And of course, he was glad that they were alive. Well, grateful that Duke didn't care and was getting sloppy. It was probably with the age and his lack of concern for anything. He hadn't been born a killer, the environment had made him one and he had indulged himself in blood. That was his choice, it was his path and it was vile.

Nick took a knee in front of Judy, which didn't even got her to look at him, so he lightly grabbed her shoulders and whispered very quietly, "Come on, we've got to go." But she didn't react again, so he shook her with some force and leaned forward into her downcast sight. That was at last when he actually received some sort of acknowledgement in the form of a weak nod, thus he helped her get her up on her feet and they began moving out of the alley and towards a place where they could be safe. The place wasn't that far away and the problem was that police would soon come around the area and sweep it and they couldn't risk it so it was not an option for her to go back to her home. Not this night.

As he walked her deeper into Canyontown, they neared a path that led down an archy gorge with houses spewing light above it and around. There were wires hanging and the lamps were working perfectly, while there was this lack of dirtiness that had been replaced with lots of grits of sand that served as riprap on the coldening ground. Judy had been quiet all the way and she had clung onto him for support, as he knew that her inner-turmoil was just bubbling to its boiling point as she was trying to cope with her emotions and not fully break down. That was why she had shut down because there wasn't another way and they didn't have time to find such.

Ah, his eyes found what he was looking for in the darker part of the edgy and uneven pieces of ravine. It was an old and familiar van with an interesting artistic design. Finnick's van. His friend wouldn't like what he was to do but it had to be like this because if Finnick found out, he'd kick Judy out without even blinking because she was simply a cop and Finnick despised them with his existence. They could try but Nick didn't want to get into a confrontation after having witnessed murder again in his life of hardships, thus he got a key out his pocket and pushed it inside the lock of the van's backdoors.

It was good that the metal box on wheels didn't have an alarm and as the door opened rather loudly, Nick helped Judy get inside the darkness and then pushed himself inside as well, thus closing the door hard, as it was just the way it worked. His eyes adjusted to the harder blackness and he spotted Finnick's mattress they would use when they'd get tired during work. It smelled of foxes but he didn't believe that she'd have an issue with that, after all, she had just went through an incredibly traumatizing event, while realizing that she couldn't do a thing but throw her life away which was unacceptable.

He sat her on the makeshift bed where a pillow without a cover lay, and got her to lean against the van's wooden insulation for support, while she just continued staring without any emotions getting through her face and body. Maybe she needed some personal space? Yea, that must've been it, thus he moved by her and sat at some distance on the same mattress. Gosh, it was so sturdy and uninviting, unlike his own heavenly bed underneath the world… His worried nocturnal eyes moved at Judy again and her behavior was really starting to trouble him. Why was she still in the trance? She needed comforting but at the same time he didn't want to be the one to do so, it was something that felt wrong and irreversible.

He played with his claws a bit while his eyes began feeling heavy as the surge of power was starting to stiffen and the darkness was aiding in his brain of attempted shutdown. He had felt such raw emotion of wanting to protect her and had even thought about giving his life, an absurd idea that now seemed actually insane and so unlike him. He didn't know her, they weren't even friends for fox's sake! Then why did he have this emotional attachment, why had it formed and why had he allowed himself it to exist. Nothing good came from this, nothing but pain, pain and pain!...

Silence crawled around the van's cold air, until Nick sighed in contempt and tried to pull her out of her crushed mental state, "Wanna talk about it?" But there was nothing, nothing and nothing. What was he supposed to do now? Had she lost her sentiment, what the hell happened to her during her time in his shirt. Oh, yes. His shirt was still unbuttoned, as he had forgotten to do so along the way. Now the stares of the nighttime mammals they met around the streets were logical, the sight must've looked very disturbing and unorthodox, huh. Well there could've been calls to the Precinct because of their appearance as well, good thing that he had hid them here. No one would come to check this place or even try to get into Finnick's van. The little guy didn't care about felony charges or authority, nobody touched his stuff without getting beaten first.

His thoughts were demolished when he heard a sniffle, a light and weak one which then turned into a hiccup. It was coming, she couldn't hold it anymore. "Hey, you al—" Her paws covered her face and she curled herself into a ball while still leaning against the van's wall. The hiccups were hard, they were very hard and her breaths carried sorrow as well as pain. Her cries were gentle and every one of them was not only suffocating her but himself as well. He could feel contempt and despondency. Contempt at Duke for being such a piece of shit and as well at himself for doing this to Judy, for getting her to such a state because of his choice to show her the truth even when that was his whole desire after he met her at the Jumbo-Pop.

The hopelessness was for himself and world, which he didn't like one bit because of the disgusting encounter, that had happened who knows how much time ago, was a looming reminder of why he had lost his optimism, why he had become the fox he was. Nick Wilde the Hustler. For the first time since a lot of time, he felt his heart to shrink and squeeze painfully as if someone was choking its life away. He growled from the pain and animosity. Why did he have to be the one to show her and see the aftermath, why had he wanted to do it in the first place? What was the fucking point of doing so… Every time he tried, he got hurt and that was insanely heartwrenching, it made his eyes to quiver and his claws to dig into the hard mattress.

His hate-instilled eyes moved at her because she was the reason that he was feeling this hurt, this… pain. But when he saw her manifested sorrow, his curled lips fell and he just couldn't blame her for anything. If he did, he was a hypocrite and a piece of shit, which even if he believed to be true, he just didn't want it to be at that very moment. He had made this problem and he had to fix it. He had to… But the only way was that way and it was making his fur to stand on end. The last time he had allowed himself such attachment he had his heart broken and mind lost. But Judy was vulnerable, she needed someone to hold the pieces together until she could do so herself.

Sacrifice.

It'd make him vulnerable, it'd make him fragile. But since when did he really care about himself? Did his well-being really matter? Couldn't he sacrifice himself so that Judy, who was a better mammal than him in every way imaginable, could continue on her path. Couldn't he take the risk and do some good in his pointless life that he had molded, a life of repetition and gloominess?

She needed someone to comfort her, and right now he was the only one who could do that. She was in this state because of him and because he had chipped her, he needed to fix her, consequences be damned. He didn't care if he would get attached, betrayed, or whatever else that couldn't come up to his mind at that moment. So with a frown, he stood up and crawled to the woeful doe. He sat as close as it was possible to her and because she didn't react negatively, he slowly snaked his arm around her back and put squeezed her shoulder with warmness.

What she did got him to gasp lightly as she leaned into him, while moving his unbuttoned shirt to the side and her cheek burrowed itself into his fur, while she wrapped her arms around his torso and hugged him so tightly that his air around his lungs felt discomfort but he didn't say or do anything but rub her shoulder affectionately. Her scent was so troubled, it had so much fear and pain in it that it got his hackles to raise and his eyes to search for a threat instinctively. Normally a mammal wouldn't get him to react like this but he knew the reasons was that he just felt a connection with her… that was the vulnerability…

Her stress poured into him as he was now sharing her burden, her weight, her grief. The tears from her eyes soiled into his fur but he didn't care, she could go at it for as much as she needed and he was going to be there for her, the commitment was accepted, it was at last let in. It got him to feel… free… As if the constraints that were around him had fallen and had let old emotions to be experienced again, and they were… ecstatic!

"I-I-I'm s-s-sorry, N-nick," she only mumbled which managed to take him by such shock that his mouth just stood open as if he was an idiot.

 _She's sorry? I'm the one who put her in this mess!_

"I'm the one who must apologize here, Judy, not you! If I wasn't so foolish, this wouldn't have happened," he explained very seriously which was very unlike him.

"I-i-i… I'm s-so s-sorry… N-Nick…" she stuttered again through her new sobs and gripped his fur even tighter. "I…I almost got us killed… I… almost got you killed… I promi—… promised to not… involve you!" she exclaimed and tried to find his eyes with her glistering ones but she didn't have the ability to do so, thus her paw searched for his head and managed to grab onto his canine teeth, yet he didn't care and even moved closer to her. What he could see in those lilacs was sorrow, hard pain, and stinging tears. It got his stomach to growl in twisting anguish. He wanted to object, to tell her that everything was alright but she didn't let him and he wasn't going to interrupt her, not a chance.

"L-listen to me! I want to be strong… you don't have to do this…" -she stopped looking at him blindly and again leaned against his side but he wasn't go to leave, that was unthinkably ugly so he showed her his reluctance by scooping closer to her and pulling her even fiercer- "you w-warned me about how things are… and I didn't b-believe you!... That's o-on me a-and only me… I'm such a s-s-stupid bunny." She buried her face into his dampened fur again and sniffed deeply several times, which seemed to calm her down. Did she like his musky scent?

"Today not only I s-saw a mammal get killed… or that I w-w-was powerless to do anything… but I almost got y-y-… I almost got y-you killed because of my naivety a-a-and impulsiveness… I…. I…" She couldn't keep talking anymore and resumed her hiccups but she did something unexpected. She grabbed his paw which was holding her shoulder, put it on her cheek which just got his brain to block but he allowed her to do so and just stopped thinking about the implications.

He was extremely surprised by her sudden move of preferred intimacy but didn't object nor pulled away. He retracted his obsidian claws and started caressing her soft and damped cheek. She was rather cold because the outside had tried to rob her warmth yet again, thus he pulled her closer to himself, and used his tail to shield her body from the world and the chill night, as he wrapped her middle. He didn't care how that may have looked or how he felt, the only thing that was important was that she needed his support, and he was going to give it to her no matter the cost because he was to blame.

He glanced down and saw that she had stopped sobbing and seemed to have dozed off, her belly slowly rising and falling with a constant rhythm. He sighed and felt her readjust herself while her paws grabbed onto his tail as she laid on his leg, which was accompanied by an adorable and, at last, peaceful yawn, while his paw was still on her cheek that he hadn't stopped caressing since she had moved it there.

 _You're not a stupid bunny, Judy. You're brave, strong, honest and…_

The thought was very hard for him to admit but he let his barriers crumble and did so anyway, not seeing a point to lie to himself.

 _And you're… incredible…_

He looked at her now-relaxed-state and smiled, while his head leaned against the wall of the van and he closed his eyes as he sought peace and solace for the night, and receiving it shortly after as the emotional journey had been really tough not only on her but on him.

The van became filled with the light snores of two mammals: one prey, the other predator, who were snuggled together, sharing each other's warmth, sharing each other's bodies, sharing the burden of reality in the cold night because of the exhaustion of the day's activities and events, which managed to only bond them together even further. A bond that now couldn't easily be severed or destroyed. A bond that now the both-of-them let take its roots and expand itself to places unknown.

But how much is too much?

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	9. Aftermath

**Chapter Nine**

 **Aftermath**

Everything was calm and well, with a feeling of safety, comfort, and serenity all around. There was that soothing scent and warmth that was close, like a supernatural presence that was watching over her. Everything was calm and well until that warmth disappeared at a certain moment and the serenity started to wobble, getting her to feel slight fear and uncomfortableness but just as she was about to try and find out what had happened, something like a blanket wrapped around her body and it was very soft, warm, and appealing in smell. She nestled herself inside and pulled the blanket to her chin, nuzzling it and starting to feel that incredible tranquility again. There were some clanking sounds and steps she heard afterwards but payed no mind and resumed her half-lucid state, trying to fall asleep.

Some time passed, and she was almost going to enter the world of endless possibilities, until she heard a thud and movement. That made her squirm inside the comfortable blanket and move herself to the other side. But then, she registered a very familiarly-sharp smell exactly before her pink nose, which got it to twitch in excitement, so she slowly open her tired amethyst eyes and saw no one other than Nick, who was holding a plastic cup of hot black-coffee with a stirrer in front of her, his face having qualities unknown due to the looming darkness all around, while his silhouette phased in and out of reality from the small protrusions of light that came from behind the curtain of the front.

"Cmon, Fluff. Don't tell me you don't want it." Nick insisted, which grabbed Judy's distracted attention.

She shook her head and lightly smiled. "Sorry, Nick… thanks," she apologized and hesitantly grabbed the cup of freshness, as she didn't want to miss her grip and drop it like a dumb bunny. The sip that followed told her that he'd probably found a vending machine nearby from which he'd taken its contents of blackness, which didn't seem anything special but it definitely was, while she needed the energy boost, nevertheless. It was a bit too sour for her and she asked, "Got any sugar?"

He sat closely in front of her and leaned on his two paws, while gazing at Judy with a wide smirk, and she could now see his emerald jewels and purple nose. He kept on leering at her like that, and she cleared her throat, as she felt his stare to be rather uncomfortable, odd, and out of place. Or so it seemed. At last, he chose to answer her simple question, "Isn't sugar going to get you too crazy... I mean, you usually look as if you're on that stuff, can't even picture you actually on it!… Should I be scared for my life?" he quipped, which made Judy to roll her eyes and extend her paw, knowing from his answer that he did have what she had asked him of.

He snorted and from his pocket, got two small sugar packets, which she took, quickly opened, slipped into her refreshment, and started to move the stirrer around the black liquid as to get tiny crystals to dissolve faster. She sipped it again shortly after and the taste was now to her satisfaction. Her gaze squinted further on Nick but because she still couldn't see him clearly, her mouth got scornful and she pleaded, "Can you get some light in here, please?" His sigh blew around the darkness but shuffling followed with movement on her side.

She felt that her ears were starting to lose their warmth and tugged them both under the makeshift blanket, while nuzzling it even closer to her and holding the hot beverage in her two paws. There were some strange sounds, like nails hitting metal and rustling of cloth, coming from the front, and after some time there was a loud clank, after which the interior lights came to life, illuminating the inside of the van with a dark-yellow color that came from a lonely bulb that hung from the ceiling.

She could see that there wasn't much back there, only the dirty brown curtain before the front, with an old chair near it and the not-so-white-anymore mattress that she had slept on. The black liquid grabbed her eyes as she stared into its nothingness which wobbled about from her unsteady paws, while her mind just stood empty, it waited for Nick to come back. The bottomless black ocean was oddly interesting, if she never knew that it could be drinkable, she'd never even put it in her mouth as even the taste wasn't that good, only the benefits of the effects.

"What else, _master_?" The comment made her look at him with disdain, and what she saw next got her extremely bashful. It was Nick, without his shirt, his bare creamy-puffed-chest exposed to her not-so innocent-now eyes. She thought that he looked very good as the details were now visible, his lean alluring-body, his red fur around his middle, his creamy-ruffled-puffed at the chest fur that went from his muzzle to his stomach and below. It almost made her bite her lip subconsciously. She moved her gaze towards his underbelly and was thankful that at least he had his pants on, even if something deep inside of her was very much disappointed. His auburn-tipped tail was swooshing around slowly, making her follow its motions as it was entrancing her, as well as getting her own teardrop-like smaller one to wiggle in excitement from the cute sight.

Getting rid of her daziness and bringing herself back to reality, knowing how it must've looked like to have stared at him, she exclaimed, "For Carrot's sake, put something on!" and hid her eyes with her blanket. She didn't hear an answer nor could feel movement, so she dared to take a peek again and saw that he had only changed his expression, which was now a wide shit-eating grin.

"My, my, is Officer Carrots getting nervous because of some fur?" he playfully mocked her and snickered. His comment didn't manage to stir enough courage in her, and she tried to distract herself with the contents of her paws, sipping from them a few times uneasily. The problem for her wasn't that she was nervous, or that she hadn't seen bare fur but that he was a canid and that his nose was too sensitive, meaning that he would detect her liking to what she was seeing, and she didn't want him to know that, not at all, as she remembered her recent misadventure and how he had detected her change of scent, while they were in her apartment, which made her squirm in her position just from the thought as she felt a very familiar tingling sensation below.

She then heard a snort and movement towards her but didn't dare look at him, fearing that her body would betray her actual thoughts. The dragging came in front of her, and she saw him with her peripheral vision that he was now very close to her, still half-naked. "Nick!" she stammered, while trying to hide herself even further but the fox wasn't moved at all, he reached for her plastic cup carefully and put it aside. Judy kept hiding herself from his gaze, not wanting to be put in such a position, where she would lose control over herself, and thinking that Nick would joke on her behalf endlessly.

"Fluff, look at me… I won't bite." But she didn't want to do that, knowing what was going to happen, and she caught a heavy sigh from him shortly after.

"Nick, put something on… please!" she begged him without an explanation as the truth would be too embarrassing for her to go through, she didn't want to be in such a spot of unconfidence and lack of control.

"Oh… someone has a little crush, don't they?" he pried, which would've made her ears go straight up if they weren't tugged tight inside the makeshift blanket, which saved her from giving him an unspoken answer.

That managed to get her courage back, feeling the sarcasm in his voice, and she wasn't going to let him know her feelings that she still wasn't even sure about. So, with maximum effort, she managed to get herself in control and look at him seriously. "No, it's just that you are a male and… you're not supposed to… don't act like… as if… as if you don't know!" she explained, crossed her arms, and prayed to the Carrot Lord that he wouldn't press harder to get the answer from her, not knowing if she could hold the fort anymore with civility.

He moved back a bit and stayed still for a moment. "I'm a _male_? Why didn't you tell me!" he teased playfully and became wide-eyed, to which she scoffed and moved her dissatisfactory glare away. "Don't worry. I know I'm irresistible, there's nothing to be embarrassed about" -he reached to grab the coffee and moved it close to her nose that wiggled at the close proximity of the refreshment- "drink up, I'm going to drive you to your apartment in 30 minutes. You've got to get ready for work. You don't want… toilet brushes and mops, do you?"

She quickly goggled at him, surprised from his words. He had woken up earlier, bought her coffee, and thought about her when she least had expected him to. That got her to forget about his undressed state, as she felt some giddiness inside of her from his care for her well-being. She smiled and took the still-hot cup from his warm paws, hugging it close and looking at the red vulpine with curiosity. Something strange was going on, and his behavior was entirely different, even when she could see hints from his sarcastic-self.

"Why're you doing this?" she pressed out of nowhere, wanting to know why he was acting as such, and hoping that he would be honest, not always try to beat around the bush like a broken chronograph.

His eyebrows went up in confusion, which she thought was very strange, and he responded with slight perplexion, "Because… _I_ want to?"

She wasn't satisfied with the spoken and didn't even see herself as worthy to be cared for by him, remembering that she had almost gotten him killed, and impulsiveness filled her, chasing away her rationality. "Why would you want to help such a… such a… such a stupid sorry-cop… like me?!" she finished with difficult mumbles that sounded strained, hugged her legs with her free paw and became downcast, feeling the anxiety from yesterday to start creeping back into her consciousness as it had begun to come back in a draining swirl of energy.

Even if her head wanted to move away from his rather shocked expression, her will reigned first, and firmly as a statue she remained as he leaned closer and grabbed her shoulders tenderly and carefully, his claws not even scraping her, yet her eyes managed to quiver in warmness as to his strangely-discovered side that she distantly believed to be true. Her throat tickled as her mind wanted to repeat those same words, words of despair and lack of positive foreseeing of the future, one that she had kept alive all this time during her life.

"Stop it Judy!" he rebuked firmly, which got her to stop shaking because of the sudden mad change that overtook him. She fixated her curious eyes at his scornful ones, and was now waiting for what was next with great anticipation. "You're not an idiot, none of what happened is your fault. Mammals die. Mammals _will_ die and you aren't to blame for that. Stop trying to feel guilty and just accept what happened as important experience! Nothing more, nothing less…" –his muzzle fell down and his gaze broke from hers- "Don't think about it too much… there is no point in doing so because… nothing will change…" -he sighed sadly- "it will only make you weak and incapable…" -his lips curled into a snarl- "which you aren't!" he asserted soundly and tightened his grip on her shoulders, expressing his feelings and trying to show her that he meant every single word.

At first, Judy looked openly at him with shock, never in her life thinking that anyone would say the things Nick had to her. Her shock subsided quickly, as she felt her heart to further warm up as his words managed to get through the barrier she was trying to put up in front of her after the gruesome events, thus her tail finally wiggled in appreciated care. He was right, there was nothing she could've done back then that could've probably changed the outcome, probably get them only killed, which wasn't better in any way.

She was just about to accept what he had said when something came back as a memory and the doubt returned, making her start to rethink that he was telling her that just to make her feel better, and the arisen clouded her rationality, making her impulsiveness to resurface and ears to stand tall from the agitation of her doubts. "You don't mean that! You said that I'm a… d-dumb hick when we met… a w-walking failure! You… wh—"

"I didn't mean that" -he interjected calmly- "just wanted to make you quit… and look where it got us, heh…" he added honestly and chuckled, giving her a very gentle smile. It was greatly disarming and pushing her to accept his explanation as true, one of masklessness. But he had lied so much then, how could she trust him after such contradictions and hidden motives, wasn't he a fox? That thought managed to snap her out of all as the prejudice tried again to take charge, it got her to belch inside and to try and banish the insane deliberations, it got her to accept the said, it made her to gulp the block of rock down and it slid painfully, tearing its way with trails of hardness and devastation.

She believed him, she really did, as there was no mischief in his eyes that she could detect, which brought appreciation about from his words and actions. That managed to make her feel cherished and to stir her affection towards the red vulpine with a force greater than before. She didn't know if he would let her do what she was about to do, and she wasn't even sure exactly what she would do but his supportive words and honesty made her heart to melt like ice, blackened ice that had overtaken her during the last hour before she fell asleep. The rusty chain around her had weakened through her newfound strength, her newfound support and… friend… _yes_ … friend…

Her lips curled into a smile and she saw that he was about to distract himself because he had started going through his pockets, so she put aside the empty plastic cup and reached for his paw, grabbing it carefully by the side and pulling it to herself, thus immediately receiving a strange questionable look from the uncertain Nick, as he seemed unsure of what she was up to.

" _Ughm_ … what're you up to?" he entreated in muddlement, and Judy saw his hackles to raise slightly, which she though looked extremely adorable, as she had made the dangerous predator scared, thus that made her ask herself why she had let her instincts to roam free all this time when the truth was just right in front of her, right for the taking, rightfully hers.

"Come here," was the only thing she chortled, and recognized his flustered look of bashfulness, which she didn't see often. It made her to chuckle from her progress and ability to get under his skin as well, by getting him to taste his own medicine, yet she felt the need to express her gratitude, and she wasn't doing this to make him feel awkward at all. She wanted to do this because her liking to him had increased by a lot, and she just wanted to do it, while at the same time hoping that he wouldn't turn her down. Her blood boiled sharply, her smile blossomed warmly, the obnoxious tendrils of fear and guilt were being loosened from her neck and the suffocation was dissipating with great haste.

"But… _but_ I'm a male—" he tried to bring her down with his last-standing sarcasm but it wasn't working very well apparently.

"Shut up," she parried, which got him to close his muzzle and narrow his brows together, and then she pulled harder, to which he actually submitted and moved closer to her, while his breathing broke rhythm, and she could see the panic in his green gems as well as his now slightly-opened mouth, with its long and alabaster canines in front, so she let go of his soft auburn-paw.

While still sitting, she thought about how he would taste like, never in her life having tasted fox but knew that he wouldn't like her doing that, as she saw his embarrassment and possible rejection from his part if she was to do that, so she removed that fantasy from her little overenthusiastic head, putting it aside for some other time and storing it. If he wasn't going to let her do that, then there would be something else, which would satisfy her want, so she stood up with erect ears, and removed his warm Hawaiian shirt from her, putting it aside while looking at him and playing with her slightly-shaky paws nervously, as she still was unsure if he would accept this type of affection, knowing that he wasn't a mammal that liked these sort of things.

 _Foxes are solitary…_

He wasn't a mammal that liked closeness even if he had a silver tongue and a way of getting mammals to trust him, his social skills being exceedingly great.

 _A silver tongue he needed so he could survive._

She was meeting his gaze directly because he was sitting, now being on her eye-level, and she saw the sharp-green moving around her frantically, making her think that he was starting to get to conclusions, which was probably activating his panic and visible anxiety. She delved at him with a sad smile and readied herself for her move, and that's when she heard a rumble escape Nick's throat, accompanied by words that would've probably tried to discourage her but she wasn't going to let him do that.

" _Uhhhh_ … J-Judy, don't d—" He couldn't even finish, as she wasn't going to let him talk her out of it. She jumped towards him, grabbing his soft neck in the process, and toppling him to the stiff mattress, while hugging him very tightly, afraid that he would try and push her away. She was feeling extremely affectionate, which didn't happen that often, only when the mammal in front was very important to her and that was very strange to her because she still didn't know Nick very well, nevertheless, she followed her gut feeling and started rubbing her cheek against his, while keeping her firm hold of his head, which she thought that was very soft, warm, and likeable, and remembered when he had rested it against her in her apartment, which increased the strength of her affection.

There was some disappointment that he didn't return the hug, yet she was content that he let her even do this, her fear of being pushed away subsiding and disappearing deep within the depths of her psyche. The familiar predatory scent was very calming for her nerves and was making her entranced, and she accidently grinded her lower body on his fluffy chest but stopped herself shortly, as she got herself in control and was just about to let him go, when she felt two tough arms encircle her middle and upper back, and felt the light pressure of his claws on her shoulder, as well as the warm embrace of the soft pads of his paws.

That made her giggle in a very adorable way, feeling delightful, as he had returned her tenderness, even if it was slightly surprising, but she didn't complain. It was strange for her that just several days ago she was scared just by his presence, and it seemed that her tactic to push her instincts away as best she could was working very well, and she was thinking clearly. Well, only the instincts for survival seemed to have been crushed, it seemed that there were some others that she had to try and control as well, which always activated by her feelings.

 _Stupid canid noses…_

But there was nothing she could do and she heard his deep inhales of her changed scent, derived from her want, yet, she didn't care which actually made her a bit worried as a result. Her indulgence into territories unknown was changing her, she could feel it as well as see. It was scary yet necessary if she was to develop further and achieve her dreams, achieve her goals. And now came the question if she had tried to taste him, would've he pulled back?

 _It's not too late to try!_

But she buried her desire, thinking that she was pushing her luck and would just make things awkward between them, as Nick wasn't that simple and would probably not like it. And there was the next problem she knew that existed, that being that he was still treading the thin line of the law, and she couldn't make such a leap, or she wouldn't be able to hold her oath, knowing full well that if she let her feelings roam free, the choice would be heavily influenced by them, which wasn't to her liking.

It was strange for her to see this part of the reynard, which she never actually believed that existed. Caring, good and understanding, it was incredible for her to be able to glimpse into the real him for the first time. He did show her hints along the way but they were subtle, and she thought that it was just his sarcastic personality, which made him hard to read and understand whether he was serious or not. But right now, right now he was real, which probably activated her affectionate nature that she had rarely experienced with others and it made her skin to tickle from inside-out of giddiness.

She let go of his fluffy neck and reached for his ear, pulling it towards her, so she could speak directly in it, and very sweetly and tenderly whispered, "Thank you, Nick," to which she actually felt him shiver as well as his fur to slightly stand up, and thought that that was cute, so she burrowed her face into his comforting neck again, inhaling deeply as well as continuing to grind her cheek, thus making an involuntary purr that the tod was very fast to detect.

He caressed her back in return with one of his paws as well as her black-tipped ears, which were in the way. That made her feel ecstatic from the sensation of him touching her long blood-filled appendages that were extremely sensitive, and which she only let a few mammals to caress, including herself of course. That got her tail to go up in joy and her to squirm in his grasp. She didn't mind and knew that he had no idea what that probably meant, probably not even considering what he was doing was doing to her. She felt vibrations that started to form in his throat and tickle her, which then molded into a quiet rumble.

" _Oh_ , you bunnies… so emotional," he teased and continued to trail her back and black-tipped ears along the way, involuntarily touching the end of her back with his obsidian claws, and getting her to shiver from the welcoming sensation.

She knew that this was the moment that if she asked him something, he would be truthful to her and if not, she would be able to detect, as he had nowhere to go because of what she was about to do. Slowly, she let go of his creamy-furred neck and leaned back, getting him to let her go and try to stand up but instead of getting off of him, she straddled his stomach and put both her paws on his chest, not caring at the moment for his undressed state and that she was all around his bare fur, even if the tingling between her thighs was telling her otherwise, and her enriched scent of arousal that was visibly starting to agitate the warmer reynard.

She pushed him back to the mattress, getting a slight grunt from him as well as a very disheveled expression, which made her snort. She leaned closer to his snout and centered her gaze with his, looking directly at his uneasy eyes, which seemed very tense, and she figured that it was her closeness that was doing that to him. She was satisfied that she was able to make him as such, not liking to be beaten by his antics, while giving him a taste of his own medicine. But she wasn't going to make a move, as he thought she would, forbidding herself to do so until he changed himself. After that it could work, that's at least what she promised herself.

So she kept studying him with a small happy smile and slightly closed eyes, while feeling his thunderous heart under her paw, which was starting to beat faster and harder, making her radiant smile to widen. Then, she felt a familiar smell, it was Nick's but wasn't his normal musky one, this one she remembered was from when she fell between his thighs, and she figured to look behind her, so she could be sure. But just as she was starting to turn around, she heard his voice, which sounded very panicked and without a hint of confidence or jokery.

"What're you thinking?!" She felt his heart push against his chest as if it were trying to escape, his warmth was all around her, as if it was trying to manifest, while she was surprisingly stable even if her body was clearly acting the opposite. But she was grateful for her clarity, as it seemed that a direct approach had managed to chase away her shyness. But it wasn't only that, she was searching for an answer from the tod and that was actually the main reason for her enormous courage and self-cool, which she was showing right now in front of the nervous vulpine under her paws.

She smirked and started pushing his chest, making them bounce in a feeble illusion on the mattress for a short time until she stopped and finally chortled in a genuine way, " _Sooo_ … we're friends now?" she asked and felt Nick's inside to stabilize itself, and she wanted to try and tease him about it but knew that it would ruin her chances, so she just waited for his answer.

Nick exhaled slowly and answered confidently at long last, "Guess so…"

His smile was noted, a smile that looked very lovely, and she repeatedly pushed him into the mattress again but there was just no bouncing, the blasted cushion was probably stuffed with led. She knew that it was now or never, and hoped for the outcome to be positive, she really wanted it to be. " _Sooo_ … you'll stop… hustling?" she asked through an awkward pause and immediately her smile fell, as stoniness plastered itself all around him, and she knew what his answer was going to be, which made her feel disappointed but it was better than nothing, she wasn't going to quit to try to make him change his mind.

"No… I won't," he maintained and sighed heavily from below. That picked up her mood and flung it back from where it had started, gloom. The warmth that had groped her now began trying to flee in large squads of desertion.

"But then you know what I have to do when I catch you, Nick!" she exclaimed and hoped that that would make him reconsider his volatile position. But his agitation drained away from him, his heart was now stable, the alluring aroma was gone, and her own body reacted accordingly.

"I know and I won't hold it against you. Don't worry," he reassured her and sent a wink, to which her ears dropped in dejected reversibility.

"But I don't want to do that! And… I'll have to…" she tried to finish but couldn't, feeling that even if they were friends, there was still that barrier that was holding them back: Nick's choice of lifestyle and Judy's choice of profession. That made her flush with anger and she gripped his fur, getting him to grab her paws because of the sudden pain she had caused him unintentionally. She felt her eyes starting to water but then saw his painful plea and quickly let go, feeling very sorry for the sharp discomfort she had caused him.

Nick relaxed as the pain subsided and reassured her yet anew, "You do what you think's right. That's what I… admire of you… Always so straight-forward… didn't believe it at first…" –his voice croaked and her ears strained to catch his words but there were none as he just gawked at her for a few moments after which he shook his head as if he had decided not to continue the previous- "Would you…" He motioned with his paws to let her know that he wanted to sit up.

She got off him with some hints of unwant, and saw him pull out his phone, seemingly starting to look at something, so she sat on the edge of the uncomfortable mattress, facing the van's backdoors, and embraced herself, not liking that she had hit a barrier with her relationship with the red tod, who she definitely liked but couldn't let herself go further because of what he had said last. But even so, he didn't seem mad at her, again he was accepting, which was very strange and was creating a stale battle inside the strings of neurons she carried everywhere. Why was he being so nice with her of all the sudden, couldn't he help her smoulder her emotions by being as he was, not this caring and alluring fox that was making her exhilarated with joy. She bit her lower lip from frustration and just stared at the wooden van's floor.

"Hey, Fluff." The silence was broken by Nick, and she turned her disappointed eyes at him, accompanied by a slight frown and waited. He scratched the creamy fur under his neck, and she saw that he looked somewhat hesitant, until he probed, "What're you going to do about Duke?"

The question made her scowl, all this teasing and yapping with Nick had managed to stray her from yesterday's calamities and grotesque bleakness. Duke, that weasel carrying his undeserved and ravaged badge, having betrayed his oath he had taken just like her and going against everything that the ZPD was about while under everyones' noses. To kill a mammal just like that in cold blood in the middle of the street, to distribute goods yet unknown but guessable in the specifics of narcotics or weaponry. It was low, it was loathing, it was petrifying. The kangaroo's head, the pooling blood and pieces of skull and brain and skin and fur splattered all around her as if she was some object devoid of life, devoid of heart and life… And now… now she was. It made Judy's stomach to curl in contrition of her disability to have done anything in essence of stopping the act of crime, the act of sin.

Coldness came down like thick murk and she felt the warmth that Nick had created to just melt away and begin turning into blocks of sharp ice. Shutting herself down and trying not to think about the events wasn't going to help any further, she had to experience the pain and just accept it, even if it was almost as hard as when she had cried herself to sleep. Something touched her on the shoulder and got her to flinch her muzzle up. It was Nick scrutinizing her very carefully in empathy and concern. "How're you holding up?"

Even if she wanted to tell him about how she felt, at the same time there was no drive to do so and, without removing his touch from her, she sneered, "What am I going to do about that beast? I'm going to report him to Chief Bogo. That's what I'm going to do! What am I even waiting for…" She shrugged his paw away and stood up with slight wobbling, due to having had sat more than a healthy amount of time. Her lilacs scanned for the exit but when she headed towards the light with some swaying, she was pulled back by Nick, which got her to gasp and almost yell, "What!?" but she didn't fight herself out of his firm hold, while the flinch that raced through him managed to stop her throttling detest.

"You can't do that," he only countered in a bleak voice. She was taken aback by his words, was he going to try to discourage her from doing the implied, why on Earth did he think that such an idea would be remotely close to normal or even barely achievable?

Therefor, she imposed with repugnance in her words, "Are you defending that… that… _murderer_?" Nick groaned with exasperation in turn and motioned to her to sit next to him, which she did after some moments of intensive staring as if she was holding a gun through her holes of vision at his head. But the new conflict that rioted in her now was seeking justice and his next words were going to be very important if he were to fix the splintered.

"Okay, so… could you tell me what proof you have" -the evil eye she was giving him intensified and he motioned a circle with his paw- "… proof that you could show the _unbiased_ Chief to make him believe you?"

She didn't need much time to ponder and quickly reasoned without noticing the hint in his words, "We were witnesses! That's enough!" His chuckle got her frown to deepen its gorge and form sharpness all around. He was behaving the same like before, but now this was dead-serious and there was no leeway allowed.

"Tell me something. What am I?" She made an _are you serious look_ and smirked with harshness. The point was made and he nodded through a breath, "A hustler who's a fox. So nobody would believe me even if I was telling them where my cache of gold was... Now, who are you?"

"Who am I?" she mimicked plainly, humoring him, as she wanted to see the point he was trying to make, while the gorge was now starting to fill itself slowly upwards.

"You're a recruit who recently joined the ZPD. A recruit who isn't liked by many as you told me so. Now, would the Chief believe a fox, who's a hustler…" -she opened her mouth to object but saw his etched disapprovement, so she let him continue- " _humh_ … and a bunny that just recently came from the academy. She, they would say, wouldn't know the difference between a carrot and a gun..." –her mind wanted to disagree but the more he talked the less her drive became- "So, a rookie and a hustler fox are convicting a seasoned Lieutenant of the ZPD for murder, without any proof but their naked words? I don't think so." Because the notes ceased flowing, her ears finally fell from attention and her head moved at the floor that now seemed rather interesting.

Realization hit her hard, making her irritation to jump a few more stories up. He was right, they didn't have proof and their words weren't enough. She could get them both into a lot of trouble if she did what she wanted to do. But there had to be some other way, something, anything! But all her ideas died in her throat, unable to escape it, thus dissolving into declines of discardment.

"On top of that, if we managed to bring proof of his… _misdeeds_ … do you want to know what happens if he gets booked?" Nick asked rhetorically and made a gun with his paw, pointing it at his temple and making a _blam_ sound… "Yea… his partner or associates come to express their condolences and I'll be the first to go. With you being second sometime in the future." She hated this. Everything he had told her sounded so logical and real, the dread was filling her core and she felt… powerless.

 _Why did I even become a cop when things are so complicated and unjustified…_

"So... If you're going to do something against that shabby weasel, talk to me first. There're many things you still don't know, which could get you killed if you're not careful enough" –suddenly, his face filled itself with concern that made her eyes to squint hard-"and… I don't want you to get killed…" he muttered and looked away, and she saw the discomfort that leaked through at saying those words, judging it by his ears that were flat against his skull and the disappearance of his usually endless smugness.

Again… he did it again. If he kept doing that, she didn't know if she could even keep up with her promise, he really cared for her and showed it, as he tried to make her see and protect her from… well… herself… She couldn't do anything against the weasel yet and Nick's proposition that she should talk with him before doing anything was now imprinted into her memory, as she saw that he was putting himself on the line on his own volition, getting her to greatly appreciate his kindness. And she thought that she was ready to become a cop, when so much more was needed to be learned. She sighed and inquired, "What's the time? I've got to take a shower, don't want to smell like you like last time," she explained and saw his shocked reaction, making her to pry quizzically, "What?"

"You think I smell bad? How _dare_ you!" he feigned offence and grabbed the fur around his heart, while he put his other paw on his forehead, which made him look like a dying fox, or just a drama queen.

She giggled at the silly sight and tittered, "No, you don't. But I can't walk around like this. Mammals will start thinking that I'm doing things that actually I'm not!" she loosened her tongue, hoping that the vulpine would shut up but she didn't actually register what she had just accidently let out.

" _Hmmm_ , things like what?" he nagged mischievously, and she felt mortified from what he was asking her as well as the hole she had accidently put herself in, while digging it deeper with every passing second with the reactions she was giving him, her bashfulness disorienting her extremely.

"L-LIKE… _e-ehmm_ … THINGS… I-it's just about the _smell_ … w-what are you…" she stuttered nonsense, not being able to form coherent sentences as the hole was just too deep and the vulpine too pushy.

" _Mmmm_. It's just about the _smell_! O- _ho_! So you like it?" he pressed harder, making her ears to go straight, accompanied by a madly twitching nose and thumping foot, and she immediately tried to go to damage control, even if the waters she was in were nearly drowning her.

"Y-… No!" Now that was pathetic.

"No? Is that why you jumped me? Because no?" he persisted with a silky-playful voice and she turned away, feeling the blush increase, and getting greatly nervous from the fact that he was pressing too hard, thus activating her imagination and other things she was trying to control with all her might of spite.

"T-that… that has nothing to do with it," she retorted without even looking at him.

" _Hmmm_ , that so? What about the fact that you were almost going to kiss me? You think I didn't see it in your eyes?" Some swooshing sound appeared behind her and the air was moving lightly, why was he doing this to her, why was he being a jerk one moment and gentle the next?! Couldn't he find a balance and pin his ass on a spot in finality?

She turned to look at him with dread, feeling her courage disappear, as she had calmed herself down from the excitement after having received his answer, making her now vulnerable to any flattery or interpretation of her actions from the witty vulpine. Her ears glued against her back and with wide-opened eyes, she stuttered, "W-wha-t-t, I d-don't know w-what you're talking about," she finished and sensed scorching sensations appearing on her paws and forehead, while her stomach twisted violently, which yanked her lungs to squeeze for more air.

 _Please drop it Nick… Don't make me talk about this now…_

He guffawed hard and slapped his knees, stood up, and reached to her with his paw, making her heart go crazy, as she thought that he was about to do something… But he didn't do what she thought he would, as he only ruffled the fur on top her head, making her scowl doubtfully from his childish behavior and slap his wrist, thus making him chuckle. "Let's go. You don't want some drunk vixens to jump you on the street, do you?"

" _Har, har_ , very funny…" she returned with mild scorn and stood up, thanking him in her mind for not pushing her further and followed him to the front of the van but ceased moving, as she noticed that he had stopped just before the dirty-brown curtain.

Nick turned around and grinned, and she saw that he was getting ready for his next remark, so she tried to steel herself. "I know you love to watch me walk around half-naked, I do. But could you pass me my shirt, we don't want other admirers to see what you've seen, don't you think?"

She hustled back in guilty understandment and grabbed his Hawaiian shirt that had lost a portion of his essence as hers had tried to overtake it like wild growth. It was thrown hard at Nick who laughed wholeheartedly. "Dumb, fox…" she mumbled and moved by him, feeling another flush go through her at the same time.

 _Dumb sexy fox…_

She sat on the right seat and waited for the roguish Nicky, who had supported her, made her mad, and tried to go under her skin in a matter of only 30 minutes. She peeked her small head outside and saw that the sun was starting to lighten the inky night sky faintly and slowly, as it was still very early morning, the white glowing dwarves being surprisingly visible to her amethyst orbs. It wasn't as beautiful as her hometown or Nick's living space near the bridge but it was good enough. She remembered from her research about the metropolis, which she did before being accepted into the academy, that there was little pollution because of the city's futuristic and environment-friendly design. There were some conflicting regions of the city but those areas were stricken with poverty, therefore came the bad living conditions and local pollution.

The canyon they were in was rather curiously adapted for mammals as there was railing around the top where the eroded rock was pointing outwards and creating a sort of a ramp that didn't look safe to Judy's eyes, lest there were railings at those rims of rock, railings of sandy texture with ropes hanging from side to side, probably used for transportation of appropriate mammals. There was a rope bridge further away and she saw some unrecognizable mammals to cross it with sways left and right.

Judy heard the rustling of cloth and jingling of metal rings and felt Nick brush her thigh with his bushy tail, which tickled and got her to shiver from the pleasant sensation, while thinking that he did it on purpose, and she saw him going to the driver's seat, to which she was puzzled at what he was going to do, and what she saw next froze her expression in bewilderment and filtered her blood of oxygen. Nick just had removed the plastic cover underneath the steering wheel and pulled some cables out.

"Stop it! Stop! You can't do that! It's a crime! Nick!" she yelled desperately and jumped next to him, grabbing his resisting paws in the process, as she didn't want him to get in trouble. Her action caused him to sigh and let go of the old cables, as he turned to look at her with a neutral expression.

"Look, this is Fin's van. If I go ask for the keys, he'll probably give me several bruises. It's still very early and transport's still pretty scarce. If you don't want to be late for work, this is the only way. Taxi will take 20 minutes and you don't have that time… And it's not crime, I'm borrowing it," he finished with a wink and went to work, this time not receiving a reaction from Judy, as she understood what the stakes were, but she didn't accept his unwillingness that easily, being who she was.

"Listen to me, you don't have to do this!" she shot and tugged his auburn paw again, looking at him very nervously and with hope that he would stop what he was about to do, not wanting him to break the law for as well as in front of her, which was a problem as well. But she knew that even if he did in this situation, she wouldn't be able to keep her promise, which made her curse inwardly for letting herself get too attached to the alluring red vulpine.

"I actually do. Owe you that much," he pointed out and tried to break free from her grasp but she gripped him harder, putting a lot of strength in her solid paws, hence partly blocking the blood flow in his veins under his skin, which got her to feel his strong pulse. She was a very tough rabbit, her rough training before the academy, and while in it, paying off immensely. But her body had limits, which she was careful about but never afraid to explore.

"You _mustn't_ break the law for me!" she tried to command, hoping that he would see reason in her words but his expression only changed to a sad smile, which didn't give her much more hope for the outcome.

"I don't expect less of you. But I want to. Now, would you let me get this garbage-on-wheels to start, please?" he wheedled, and she finally let him go reluctantly after seeing that he wasn't going to back up unless she used brute force, which there was no desire to even think about.

Feeling that this wasn't going anywhere, she jumped back to her seat and sat, crossing her arms and continuing the battle inside of her head. The one side was the law, which was telling her that she had to enforce it and not let him do what he was about to but then there was the other side, her rationality, which was telling her that the tod was doing this for her and there was no actual harm done. The battle didn't rage for much, as she remembered Nick's words, where he told her that the right thing was the most logical and rational, that things weren't black and white.

She finally grasped the meaning with this current situation and surprisingly felt warm from the vulpine's actions, seeing that he was doing all this for her. He was putting his head on the line for her, risking everything even when she told him that she was going to catch him. Judy came to the conclusion that she would only do what was right, depending on the severity of the situation, which calmed her nerves, and she at last looked at him, seeing that he was still fumbling with the wires.

The van was pretty old and didn't have anything special as a starting mechanism, unlike the newer cars in Zootopia, which had anti-theft systems as well as some needing a fingerprints where possible of course. But this van was as old as history itself and Nick easily found the ignition and battery cables. This visibly wasn't his first time and that didn't sit all too well with her, yet she remained content. The wires had old duct tape loosely hanging off of them and he easily removed it with his sharp black claws, and connected the ignition wire to the battery one. Then he got the starter and carefully touched the connected battery wires, which earned a sizzling spark that got her eyes to narrow and mouth to lightly open but then her ears sprung forward as the front growled to life with a choked breath.

"Old piece of junk's still reliable, _heh_ ," he murmured to himself with a glance aimed at Judy who met it with a scoff as she was rather dissatisfied if not almost fuming with what he had done but she kept quiet as the acceptance did so with her mouth.

There was some ruckus from the house inside the canyon that managed to get through the slightly opened window of the van, but then the ruckus became very loud yelling with the notes of murderous rage that made Judy's fur to stand on end and her paw to reach for an imaginary weapon on her imaginary belt. The transmission grinded in lack of healthiness and the growls boosted sharply.

"Put your seatbelt," Nick advised with a wobbly voice and glanced at the side mirror, which got Judy to repeat the same animalistically. The sight got her breath choked as the sight of a small fox, with a bat bigger than his body charging after them, a sight never've been seen in her entire life.

" _You stealin' from the wrong fool ya snobby cunts! C'me back'ere so I can shit in yo mouths ya nasty dicksu—_ "

Judy saw the etched expression of fear on Nick's face, which looked very amusing and troublesome, and she could see that they were getting further away, the shouts getting fainter and fainter with every passing moment. She fumbled with the beige claws on her fingers as they exited the narrow gorge and headed towards the main road that led, judging by the climate wall on her right, to the bridge next to Downtown. But it seemed that the distractions for her had ended, and she could now reflect upon the recent experiences more in depth and with better clarity.

"Close one. He's a dangerous one, I tell you," Nick began breathlessly and glimpsed with a hesitant grin at Judy, who nodded confusedly as well as lightly disapprovingly due to having had come to peace with the reality of the situation, yet her demeanor wasn't of satisfaction to the red tod as she heard him ask, "What? What now?"

Just as she was about to answer him, a very big insect that looked like a horse-fly moved in front of her eyes and landed on her nose, which started twitching from the contact of the overgrown insect that was as big as the nose it was standing on, but it appeared that it didn't care and was seemingly playing with its front legs, looking like it was getting ready for something. Judy continued scrutinizing the big insect with curiosity and didn't chase it away but then heard Nick gasp in a very unprecedented way.

"Kill it, Fluff! Kill it!" She didn't know why he would think that she would kill an animal, even if it was just an insect, intentionally. It hadn't done anything to her, it was just staying on her pink nose so, without moving her head, she deflected with a scowl that got the small hairy beast to go up slightly.

"I won't kill it, it hasn't do— _Aaah-owww_!" she cried out from the sharp piercing sensation on her sensitive pink nose and immediately grabbed it as if it was going to fall off her, the fly having bitten it pretty savagely and gotten away with it, disappearing from view and hiding somewhere out of sight. She rubbed her pulsing twitcher and heard Nick laugh like a madmammal at her misfortune.

" _Whoa_ -hah- _nono_ … This did not just happen" -he gloated at her with mischief, meeting her disapproving glare and reddened nose while barely holding his laugh- "you lived on a farm! And… you don't know that those beasts bite like hell?!" he finished and hit the steering wheel with both his paws, not being able to hold his laughter at the ridiculous event that had just transpired.

Judy felt outplayed by the malicious fly that she couldn't see no more and really wanted to teach it a lesson as it had humiliated her in front of the annoying red vulpine. But it had disappeared, and she wondered if it had joined in forces with Nick, so that they could destroy her emotional stability as well as her conscious capabilities.

Banishing the ridiculous thoughts, she asked, "The ones on the farm aren't as _big_ as my nose. They don't bite as well… And was I supposed to hit myself?" She knew that she could've just chased it away but it seemed that the reynard's influence had grown on her, and she now seemed to want to win the exchange, even if she seemed to be on the losing side. It was like a game was the easy muse.

Judy saw him remove his paws from the old steering wheel, getting her fur to electrify, and she almost said something about it but then saw him to vertically collide both his paws in front of his nose, while looking at her from the corner of his eye, which generated a clap around the interior after which his paws rested from hence they came and his grin moved along the trailed path of Judy's eyes, which made her to huff in defeat, and she peeked through her window, looking at Downtown's tall scrapers that slowly slugged by from the long distance.

Never had she gone there to see them up close, while the fantasy of going up on one of them was just as distant as the prospect of Bogo getting off her tail. But why hadn't she gone there and just eyed everything, went in where possible? It was as if the area was off bounds to mammals without status, as if it were for only those deserving to afford it who would walk its prestigious streets and air… Who would let such an incapable bunny such as her there? One that couldn't do what she had strived to almost half her life…

Again were the thoughts of depression trying to enter the walls, again were they crashing thunderously against the cracked rock of her defenses that Nick had helped her keep up. But why was she even thinking as such? This wasn't going to help anyhow, it was only going to further dig the problem which was still shallow and undeveloped. She would go there where her eyes were staring in snare, nothing was keeping her from doing it and the fears from not being let in were just annoying and constricting, she wasn't going to allow herself to be driven by that damn fear as it would just prove the speciesm of society. The choking gulp was made and her body tingled in the departure of her anxiety.

Judy exhaled slowly, having gathered all her thoughts in place and order, thus she started at last with a small smile, "Thank you, Nick" -the reynard slightly turned his head to look at her while eyeing the busying-up road in front-"you could've just left me yesterday to fend for myself, yet you didn't…." -she caressed her ear, as the awkwardness was kinda disgruntling- "You could've done that this morning as well… yet you didn't... and I've been only causing you trouble…"

"Nothing special," he replied humbly but she didn't believe his words.

"From your part, it is," she dug in and waited for his response, knowing that from her observations that the vulpine wasn't a mammal that cared much for others, as he had told her just that himself.

"I guess," he deadpanned just before they drove across a bridge that went across an artificial river that didn't carry a very healthy color, strangely. The cars had increased considerably and already the honking and yelling could be heard through the van's thin walls of glass and metal. Mammals were overtaking the sidewalks, while those that didn't care about their safety or those of others were crossing the active street, which was of no interest to Judy at this very moment of personal immersiveness with Nick.

Judy wanted to know the exact reason, not his auxiliary explanation that he was doing this because he was responsible for it, so she pressed on, "Why?" and heard a slow exhale, while still observing him, trying to see every single motion his body did if he tried to hide something from her. But he was calm and actually acted normal.

At long last she saw his lips to move and heard him gush, "Because I like you," to which she gawked at him with a wide-opened mouth and turned around quickly, the blush starting to take over her face and ears, which she drooped as to obscure that detail, and turned away from him harshly.

 _He likes me? Ummm…_ She detected a snicker and turned around quickly.

"I like who you are. It's beyond me how you managed to get up today and not surrender. Or from what you told me about yourself. It speaks volumes of how strong you are, which is rare. I've rarely met anyone like you, seriously" -the tod tilted his head at her with a small warm smile- "I thought that you were weak and fragile when I first met you but I was wrong. You're opposite of all that, remember it. It doesn't mean that there aren't mammals like you but… well… you get it," he explained with vigor and sent her a wink, while genuinely smiling even more vibrantly.

 _Oh, he doesn't like me like… huh._ His words struck deep within her, making her feel touched by his honesty, as she had never heard someone say the things he did, maybe some parts of it from her friends and siblings but not to such an extent. The fox that told her that she was going to be a failure was now contradicting himself, and she felt giddy, nervous, radiant and most of all, the affection came back into her but this time it was very primally strong and managed to change her scent heavily, which the vulpine immediately caught and chuckled because of that.

" _Ahhh_ , is someone getting flustered?" he jabbed playfully, and she saw that he was turning into the teasing Nick that usually was present, not the tender and caring one she recently found about, and who she very much liked-liked.

But that didn't matter, she knew his game, and bashfulness was met with the challenge to make him speechless, so she snorted and answered, "When you say such words to someone, especially a doe. Wouldn't that be normal, Slick?" -the rare usage of that nickname got a grin out of him- "I think that you deserve another hug…" she trailed off and tried to remove her seat belt but was immediately met by panicked words of unconfidence.

" _Whoaw_ , stop right there. _Ehm_ … I had my dosage of fluff for the week, no need to overdo it!" he fretted uneasily, and she saw his panic as well as his nervous smile, to which she laughed very jovially and managed to even tear up on the corner of her lids.

Removing the moisture from her eyes, she sassed, "See what's it like to taste your own medicine?" she finished with crossed arms, smirk and one raised eyebrow as well as a very teasing voice, trying to imitate his slick one.

Nick stopped at a traffic light and turned to look at her, seemingly searching for a response but she knew that she had managed to corner him and there was no way out. "Sly bunny."

That made her snort and she added cheerfully, "Dumb fox." She started liking the exchanges they would do even if she thought that they were extremely annoying before. It looked like the vulpine was influencing her quite a lot but the same could be said for him, and she knew that, seeing it with her own eyes as well as his actions. That made her optimism bloom, and she began humming a random tune, feeling very happy from the idea that there was probably a way.

But the tune escaped her mouth like overpressured steam as something in front crashed hard and violent, which got the van to squeak and screech audibly and painfully, while both of them bounced up and down, which made Nick hit his head in the metal ceiling and Judy to catch his groan of pain, so she turned to look at him from confusion and after understanding what had happened, started laughing as hard as she could, feeling pressure in her stomach from its intensity. She heard him scoff but just couldn't even try to look at him as her eyes were blurry with salty happy tears, and he used that moment to put his seatbelt on.

Judy looked at him at last with satisfaction and calm, at last managing to restrain herself, and teased, " _Soooo_ … are all foxes bad drivers, or is it just you?" His head slowly cranked at her with a hostile smirk and she just couldn't hold her giggle.

" _Tck_ , _tck_ … I'm having a very bad influence on you. You should hang around me less, my innocent-dear bunny." He returned and turned his sight back towards the road, while rubbing lightly the bump on his head. It seemed that they were nearing the west side of the Central station which was bustling with activity and commotion.

"That's not tr—" she tried to deflect but something unexpected happened as a loud explosion came from behind the van, which dropped her heart in her stomach, while her legs tried to scurry her away from danger, yet the seatbelt locked and dug into her fleeing body. Her head peeked from the gap between the seats but there was nothing in the back but the colorful mattress and toppled chair and swinging bulb on top. Had the chair done this? But that had been an explosion!

Seeking an answer, she noticed a strange sight of Nick smiling as if knowingly. He was unmoved by the slightest. "What was that?" she inquired curiously with a raging heart, while her body rested itself back in the seat at last, while the reactions of the mammals around the moving station didn't interest her much.

"What was what?" he soundly played dumb and chuckled, receiving a scowl from the young doe at his attempt of playing smart-ass but as she was very much interested in finding out what that extremely loud bang was, and seeing his smugness still glowing around him, she tried again.

" _Niiiick_ …" she begged coyly and leered at him, with a tilted head and drooped ears, while making a very sad, filled with dolefulness face, which looked awfully adorable, and as Nick noticed her, he just couldn't visibly hold himself from saying the next word.

" _Cute_ …" he commented with a smile, which changed her expression immediately to one of shock and then anger, as she hated being called that but after seeing the panic on his initials, that managed to restrain her from removing the belt and punishing him, so she waited for his apology and explanation.

Nick coughed, scratched the fur between his ears near the bump, and gawked at her apologetically. "Hey! It's not like you aren't" -she glared at him as if there was going to be blood if he said anything stupider- " _ahm_ … that's unfair… _okay_ … the cylinder misfires! This old garbage truck has its issues… Happy now, Miss Adorableness?" He chewed on his bottom lip, while gazing at her for a few seconds.

He was being pricky because he wanted a reaction out of her, thus she feigned angriness and muttered away, " _Insufferable fox_ …" That earned her a laugh as he had heard her, to which she met his smug squint.

"You know you love me," he insinuated cheekily, with a wide smirk, and she saw him wink at her. There weren't any implications to be made, it was friendly banter.

Judy snorted and chortled, "Do I know that?" -she returned the vibrance- "Yes, yes, I do. But only when you are not acting like a douche," she added and saw his amused look as well as his tail that wagged behind him, making her understand that he was quite radiant at that very moment. But then his smile turned into a smirk and then a very wide grin, while at the same time they were getting close to her apartment complex. That wasn't good and she knew it, not the part of them nearing her home tho. Knowing that he had something that probably wasn't good for her, she readied herself for whatever the future had written to happen.

"You love me so much…" -he leered at her extremely mischievously- "that you decided to take a picture of me when I'm sleeping… with you in it, if I may add."

Her ears plummeted behind her and her nose went crazy, while she had an extremely flustered look, while her paws huddled together instinctively, and she stuttered out, "W-wha-tt… no… I d-didn't…" but she could see that she wasn't fooling him. That was when he parked in the middle of the road in front of her flat and turned his entire body at her, piercing her with his emerald gems, and calm yet dangerous smirk. She didn't really care at the exact moment for his parking violation, he was trying to violate her by crushing her with embarrassment.

She tried to open the van's door but it was locked and didn't budge, which meant that the only exit left was the backdoor in the back, so she removed her seatbelt, and just as she was going to bolt out of the danger zone, she collided with Nick's body that was now in between the seats in front of the curtains. She looked up and sensed his ardor, feeling that he was very much amused with her misfortune of being caught red-pawed, while his tail swooshed like crazy behind him, making the dread inside a tad less uncomfortable but not enough to extinguish the unchecked raging fire of bashfulness.

Nick stared at her, licking his upper alabasters with amusement. He had crossed his arms and taken up all the space there was, so that Judy wouldn't be able to go through. "You have the right to remain silent, anything you say will be used against you and if you do, then you will stay here until the matter is solved," he declared and moved closer to her, and she saw that he was trying to corner her between the seat and door, so she tried to push him away and dash for freedom but he managed to use the momentum and push against her, not using too much force than necessary, his weight advantage playing a major role, thus putting her in the corner she was afraid of being in.

She was caught with her paw in the cookie jar, and she didn't like that one bit. _Did he go through my phone? THAT INSUFFERABBLE FOX!_ The nervousness was swarming back into her, and she couldn't think clearly, her judgement clouded, her body irresponsive, the reynard too cunning.

He was too close to her, almost touching her wiggling pink nose with his calm purple one. But then, she remembered that she wasn't the only one that was feeling as such, so she gathered what leftover courage she had and with a madly twitching nose and thumping right foot, she tried to grab his snout but he snapped his jaw, making her flinch and fire up her instincts that seemed to have been absent for quite some time, surprisingly.

" _Nu-uh_ ," he motioned his head and waited for her answer, while licking the sides of his mouth suggestively.

She didn't want to tell him but there was no time, and she had to get ready for work, it seemed that the vulpine wasn't going to let her go even if she tried to fight him, which wouldn't be a good idea as there wasn't space for her to maneuver and his weight advantage was going to be a problem, so she calmed herself and accepted her fate but there was no way in hell that she would tell him the truth, so there was going to be some twisting. "Because I… wanted to."

"Wanted to… what?"

Judy looked left and right, feeling pressured but her mind had already put the chains around the truth and wasn't going to let it go out, her raging emotions getting the better of her and making her unstable. "I don't want to tell you!" she snapped furiously, looked at him with scorn and unsurprisingly saw the surprise in his eyes, accompanied with a gloating retreat, and she knew that he was going to say something smart and suggestive. _I hate you Nick…_

"Feisty…" -he rumbled tastily- "just roll the window down..." And with that he moved away from her, which was incredibly mouth-dropping, as he didn't say much nor tried to jab her with his teasing, his strange behavior getting her curious but not enough to ask directly, at least for now.

He was giving her a free pass even when she didn't give him what he wanted, which made her feel the already-increased temperature in her ears go up, so she took her chance before her body would betray her again. She rolled the window down quickly with some strain from the old crank, and exited with a hop.

"Bye, Nick. Thanks for the ride!" she relented apologetically from the outside, still nervous for being caught, yet relieved that he didn't want to know more.

"Sure," he answered with a light tug on his lip, and she heard another explosion from behind the van, to which she shook her head and aimed her feet at the stairwell. But her eyes wanted to see him again and she glanced back, to which his lazy salute at her was seen, until he disappeared down the now-visible street as the darkness had lost its strength upon the land, the day starting to wake up and take charge. Judy felt as if she was in the middle of an inferno, her thoughts and feelings raging unchecked. She didn't understand how she could be so confident at a given moment and speechless at another.

The biggest problem she was facing tho was the attraction she was feeling for the red fox, who managed without even trying, to make her fall for him but she had made herself a promise and that promise was going to be kept even if…

She shook her head, clasped her paws together and continued her sprint towards her rented apartment, knowing that she didn't have too much free time to spend, and not liking the idea of helping out with cleaning again.

One big problem resurfaced tho, the images of blood and death, the images of helplessness and despair, the images of savageness.

Her smile from affection died and her arms went around her, while she tried to hold herself together until she was back home.

The anxiety was back again and there wasn't anyone to keep her occupied anymore…

She felt… ill.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	10. Unfit for Duty Part 1

**Chapter Ten**

 **Unfit for Duty Part 1**

Judy was sitting in the bullpen of Precinct 1, waiting to find out if she was going to have a good or dreadful day, hoping deep inside that it wasn't going to be associated with any sort of cleaning. She preferred to have to deal with ill-tempered mammals rather than unclog toilets all day, stain her fur, and smell like a sewer.

The thought alone made her shiver, and she tried to distract herself with something. She had arrived 30 minutes earlier, not wanting to be late like last time, and had managed to do everything she wanted to before coming in for work. Everything had worked out perfectly, even if she had to endure some emotional instability because of a certain mischievous red fox and a certain abandoned old warehouse. But it didn't matter, as she was now here in a perfect condition, her scent wasn't mingled with Nick's, her uniform was pristine as well as her fur. There wasn't a single spot on her and she felt excited for her next assignment, until the doubt from yesterday came back to try and bring her down but she forced it out of her mind and chased it far away in the abyss of her psyche.

Judy was sitting on the front right row in a chair a bit too big for her, as those that were for her size were apparently occupied or reserved, having had found out when someone almost pushed her off one. She didn't like that even one bit but was content to keep her opinion to herself, thus she had complied and found the big seat that she was currently in and remembered that it was the same one that she was in on her first day, when she got her small piece of reality sliced to her. It was a damn uncomfortable chair but it was greatly preferred to the humiliating sitting on the floor.

The room was filled with chatter, loud laughs and commotion coming from somewhere behind Judy, which made her look back, but she couldn't see anything as the table was obscuring her view, so she had to jump up, grab onto the chair's top and hold her position. She could see a fellow officer, who was a female tiger, paw wrestling a big male brown bear, and Judy could clearly see that the bear was losing. The shouts became louder, the atmosphere even more exciting, and Judy was amazed at the strength the tigress was showing, the bear being way bigger than her, yet visibly losing from the smaller mammal. Judy felt a pang of jealousy that she couldn't ever be like any of them, being just a small bunny but she immediately rebuked those thoughts, remembering how mammals used to and did tell her those words, so they could bring her down, and she was now doing it to herself, which was unacceptable.

Judy heard a loud crash, and she saw that the bear's paw laying on the table underneath the tigress', and it seemed that he had a disbelieving look. A look that expressed shock, uncertainty, and horrification. Shortly after the cheering started, and as Judy was just about to do the same, she felt the chair move very sharply, making her lose her balance and fall on the seat on her fluffy butt, which's muscles managed to minimize the impact, muscles that she had developed from the endless hours of training. She stood up quickly and rubbed the slightly sore spot she fell on, while trying to figure out what had happened, which didn't take long, as she heard the scraping of a chair next to her, and saw no one other than a very familiar rhino that always carried a deadpan expression and a wider waist than normal.

 _Mchorn… great…_

She wanted to ask why he had pushed her chair, while she was on top of it, but figured that he must've not seen her, so she managed to calm down and lock her dissatisfaction away. She saw that he looked unhappy, and she figured that it was probably how he usually was, which was rather strange, but there wasn't much to think upon that.

Knowing that she could try and lighten up the mood, she moved closer to the edge of her chair and said, "Hey, Mchorn" -she saw him slowly move his head towards her, accompanied with disinterest- "ready to make the world a better place?" she asked and extended her paw for a fist bump, to which the rhino grunted, rolled his eyes, and humored her, pushing his big bulky fist against hers, but as she tried to hold her paw in place, the force was just too much and she lost her balance, which made her stumble back, almost fall off the chair, and to laugh nervously, while the rhino only moved his gaze away from her and huffed in annoyance.

Judy then sat on her seat again and played with her ears, not seeing anything else to do as many of her colleagues didn't want to speak with her. It was strange how the mammals that were as small as her, or only slightly taller, weren't disrespected as she was, but then again, they weren't rookies and maybe they were in the same spot as she was. That made sense and at the same time it didn't. Why there had to be such bigotry and lack of friendliness was beyond her.

She heard a familiarly unpleasant voice inside the room, so she looked from around the chair's back, and saw the one mammal she didn't want to even remember to have existed. _Weaselton_... She could see that he again was looking awful, while sitting in the seat that she was previously in, and talking to the mammal that had almost pushed her off that seat. The doe looked away, and tried again to find a way to expose the corrupted cop but there weren't any scenarios, where she or Nick leave unharmed, exactly the opposite every single time…

Crossing her arms from frustration, she tried to empty her thoughts, not liking to think upon something that she had already done for hours beforepaw. And thank the Carrot Lord that a distraction came up, as the Chief barged through the door from the backroom of the bullpen. He did it with such force that the sound it made, after hitting the adjacent wall, got Judy to grimace in pain and all the Officers in the room to shut up, a cloud of uncomfortable silence overtaking the air in the room that now seemed very claustrophobic and small. She saw Bogo slowly walk to the podium, looking angry like always, and stop as he reached his destination. He eyed everyone very thoroughly, including her as well, and at last said with a very calm voice, "Sit."

Judy sat carefully, her butt being a tad sore from the fall, but she encountered the same problem as before, as she couldn't see anything, only her black-tipped ears going above the table in front of her, so she had to sit up in order to fix the problem, which she did. The Chief put on his reading glasses, and she thought that he looked extremely strange because that actually made his threatening and always-hateful look become exactly the opposite, he seemed… civilized.

"Nothing out of the ordinary. Most are to continue their regular duties. We have a murder that happened before midnight in Sahara Square that Precinct Seven wants us to investigate. I have no idea why that is" -he grunted in agitation- "I'm appointing Lieutenant Weaselton and Sergeant Songdog to go there and get things done" -he looked through the papers that were in his hooves, visibly searching for something else- "… dismissed."

Judy was at loss of words and sat down. _Resume you duties?_ Did she have to go to that suffocating room again that smelled like a tobacco factory, and put on that disgusting saggy uniform? The dread came back, accompanied with that loathsome anxiety, which made her squirm in the already uncomfortable chair, while feeling her body temperature increase sporadically in places that now itched.

She didn't want to go there, she would love to take parking duty instead. There had to be a way for her to get out of this dire situation. Most of the officers had already exited the bullpen, and she was just about to jump off the chair and chase after the towering water-buffalo, when she heard her name, and she stopped, her ears tracing the sound which seemed to have come from the podium, thus she sat up and saw the Chief, who was looking directly at her with an extremely disapproving glare and hope filled her core that he hadn't forgotten about her.

"As much as I'd love to leave you at your… _productive_ assignment" -he scoffed and scowled harder- "… I received a request recently. I've got no clue why they'd want to waste time on you but it's their choice and I don't see a problem. You're going on patrol with them and I want zero mistakes from your part. Or I'll have your BADGE!" he yelled and gripped the wooden podium, making the wood crunch from the force that he used. The sight looked terrifying for the doe but the good news that she was about to do actual police work made her so excited that she started jumping on the seat from happiness and trepidation of the new thrilling assignment.

"You prove yourself capable, I'll think about returning you to parking duty… Go wait in the lobby." Judy was looking at the Chief with all her focus, and saw him narrow his eyes and lean towards the podium while looking at it. He raised his hoof in the air and then, after several seconds, he smacked the top of the poor wooden object with such force that her ears fell behind her and she recoiled, thus hitting the back of the chair, as the loud thwack scared the fur off her. Well, at least she had a way out of toilet exploring and a chance to experience a real patrol, being a real cop.

The Chief murmured something she couldn't hear because of the slight ringing in her ears, but she managed to detect him say the next thing, "What are you still doing here! OUT!" he shouted firmly and she quickly jumped off the chair and sprinted towards the lobby, afraid that he would change his mind and re-assign her to something worse than cleaning duty. She knew that there was probably nothing worse but that didn't mean that she was willing to bet her well-being to see if she was right.

Rounding the support column in the lobby, she arrived at the reception desk and searched for Clawhauser, wanting to tell him what she had gotten because she liked the cheetah and knew that he would be happy for her but it seemed that he wasn't there, the desk being abandoned, without a visible soul being there. Judy went to the back, thinking that he was somewhere on the floor, probably having dropped his snacks, but there was no one and nothing, so she huffed with displeasure and headed towards the benches that were close to the PD's windows and entrance.

She got to the bench that was surprisingly for her size and sat on it, feeling that it was way comfortable than the chair she had remained in a few minutes ago. Surveying the lobby, there weren't many officers, probably because most had went to their offices or elsewhere. She started wondering who she was to accompany on this formidable day but none came to mind, as she hadn't made any friends other than Clawhauser, who seemed to be the only friendly mammal in the building.

It was strange for her that out of nowhere, someone would want to help her, even a bit suspicious but then again, who said that miracles didn't happen. Maybe this was some kind of radical luck, luck she had been missing since her first day she started work. The first days while she was in Zootopia were incredible but after she started working, everything went to hell. Every day, worse than the other. Well, not those when she and Nick hanged around, she actually enjoyed them as she thought about it. She learned so much from him in a small amount of time and wondered how much more she could acquire. But of course it wasn't just about the learning…

 _Dumb fox._

He was such a strange mammal. A strange mammal with a bad taste in fashion. At first she thought that he was just the usual scumbag but then he accidently, in her opinion, revealed a part of himself that made her intrigued in him, getting her to go with him out of Zootopia and out of civilization, something a normal mammal wouldn't ever do but she wasn't a normal mammal. She wondered if it was possible to make him stop breaking the law, as her mentality was still strong on this subject but it wasn't as strong as before because of what had happened and Nick's explanations as well as actions. She couldn't fault him for his choices, and she wasn't going to try and cause problems without a very solid reason. A reason that she weighted had to be very severe in order for her to take action, her newly developed link to him making her to suppress her nature of mild perfectionism.

She was pulled out of her thoughts when she sensed someone's presence in front of her, thus she looked up and saw no one other than the tigress from the bullpen, who was looking at her with a smirk. "Hey," said Judy nervously, not knowing why the tigress was looking at her like that without even saying a thing or announcing herself. From close, the black lines around her diamond-like face and lips and ears were all too visible, while she had long white whiskers which flicked with every subtle motion of her mouth, a reason why Judy always removed her own. She did have a pretty wide neck and chest, while Judy's were pretty small. Well the tigress was a predator while Judy was a prey mammal, one ate flesh and bones, the other vegetables and grass…

"Hello to you too, Hopps." Argh, she had been staring inappropriately at her, the surprise hit her hard because the tigress knew who she was, and she didn't remember telling her, or the Chief ever introducing her publicly.

"You know me?"

The question made the tigress laugh genuinely and answer, "Of course! You're like the only bunny officer in the PD. How could I not?" The comment made Judy to smile because the mammal in front of her didn't seem to have a malicious intent or hateful attitude like the rest, getting her to smile even wider in addition. "Oh, name's Rozmari Fangmeyer," the tigress said and extended her paw towards the grey doe, and Judy happily took it, grabbing it firmly, while still sitting on the comfy bench. Judy began wondering if this was her 'guide' for the day, and actually wanted it to be, as the tigress seemed to be a good mammal, as she couldn't see any hidden motives on her part, at least yet.

"So, what do you think of the Precinct, Hopps?" asked Fangmeyer and Judy almost answered with her honest opinion that it was filled with bigots, corruption, and hate but grit her teeth and buried those words far away, as she knew that she could get herself into trouble as well as Nick if they found out about who she was specifically talking about for the corruption part. She just couldn't exclude anyone from the suspect list of affiliations with the weasel or his partner. Fangmeyer in front of her may've be acting friendly but that didn't mean that she couldn't be in touch or in the same scheme.

Thus, Judy formulated a vague answer and said, "Uhm, not bad… but could be better. I haven't been treated all too well, actually," she answered and became downcast but then heard an empathic sigh from in front of her, which made her look up and see the sad smile on Fangmeyer's attentive face.

Fangmeyer took a knee in front of the doe, so she wouldn't have to look down on her when speaking and said, "I know, Ho— Can I call you Judy?" –with no hesitation, Judy nodded in enjoyment of this new befriending- "it's not only you if you think that it is, Judy. Every— _everyone_ has been in your place" -Rozmari sighed sadly- "it's something we just have to cope with and go through. You have to show your worth and that takes time, quite a lot to be fair."

Judy felt her heart to warm up considerably at Rozmari's words, and she believed her that she wasn't receiving the hate just because she was a bunny but because she was just new. That made her optimism to start blooming again, until she saw the mischievous smile of Rozmari, which she knew, from experience with Nick, that it only meant trouble, so she steeled herself for what was to come next.

"Apart from that…" Rozmari added slyly, "why does your locker smell like there is a dead fox inside of it?" she probed, and Judy became rigid as well as slack-jawed. _Uh-oh_ …

She had forgotten… Why did she forget that uniform that didn't smell bad for her then, and pleasant for her now. Was she thinking that it would go unnoticed? Her tongue was paralyzed, her breathing had stopped, and she stopped moving, taking the appearance of a statue. For a second she thought that if she stood still, Rozmari would lose interest but that didn't seem to be working, and she could now even feel her heartbeat that was pounding in her drooped ears like a hammer.

What was she supposed to say? _It's not what you think, just slept with a fox because I wanted to break the bunny stereotype by hanging around him!_ That was out of the question. Nothing logical could come up in her mind, and she was running out of time because if she didn't give her the answer right now, it would be like actually giving it to her, but nothing was coming up, nothing…

Thus Judy did the only thing that came up her mind, she made the most awkward smile possible, while trying to readjust her uniform's collar because she was feeling tightness around her neck as well as increased uncomfortable heat. The lack of oxygen was starting to takes its toll and the doe exhaled at last, which made her body to shiver and Rozmari to giggle rather lowly.

"I'm not one to judge, Judy! You can do whatever you want," -she giggled again, and it was so strange- "it's just strange, is all… All it matters if you're happy—"

"Nothing happened, Rozmari!" Judy almost yelled, as she could see where Rozmari was heading, having experienced assumptions from other mammals and not liking them even one bit. She and Nick hadn't done anything, if they had, she definitely wouldn't be so bashful about it, probably.

"Oh, but of course. And just Roz would do," the tigress purred and bumped her nose a few times with her beige claw, while her smirk widened slowly and impishly. Then, she stood up and said in a happily-teasing tone, "See you 'round, _predo_ ," and went on her way, which got Judy down as well as a little relieved, as she figured that Rozmari wasn't going to be her _guide_ and at the same time she the onslaught had seized, thus her heartbeat normalized and she felt peaceful, while thinking if she had any time to go and snatch that uniform that was in a bad place with bad properties as well. But she knew that she had to wait for the officers, who she didn't know who'd they be, because the Chief was being very vague in the information he had given her, so she decided to do nothing and wait.

 _Predo? She enjoyed herself too much…_

But there hadn't been any malice, just Nick-alike sass and that got her to wonder if they weren't related in some way, even if the possibility was slim to none. Maybe it was some gene that aided in the development of a specific trait like the one of being an asshole? Well, too bad she didn't have it as well, yet knew that it was starting to mutate because she could already feel it inside her cells of life. But it definitely could serve as a defense mechanism against something unlikable, against someone unlikable. Like a last resort, a useful and practical way of dealing with issues. Yes, she could use it…

Judy stayed there for quite an annoying amount of time, which greatly disgruntled the fur out of her, while no one else stopped by to talk or tell her to follow them, which began making her feel impatient and grumpy and uncertain if she was at the right place. She couldn't get information either because Clawhauser was still absent, thus at last from frustration she pulled out her phone, not seeing a point not to anymore as her focus was disappearing, and she wasn't talking with anyone, therefore a distraction was needed to eradicate her boredom and gloominess. She hadn't used it since her attempt to record the confrontation between Duke and the kangaroo and remembered that Nick had touched it and had seen her picture of him, which made her huff of annoyance to flame the air, due to having been caught in the act.

She wondered what else had he done on her phone and started checking her messages, which seemed untouched as well that there were none sent, which was indeed a relief, as he could've sent her parents or siblings that picture and create a very unpleasant situation for her, a situation that would've entirely ruined her day, week, month.

At last, she figured to check her pictures and when she did, she found what Nick had done. It was a picture, which wasn't very clear as the phone's flash was only that good, of her leaning on his thigh with his tail around her middle and the tip being in her paws, while she was snuggling it close to her chin, the bushy fur obscuring quite a lot of her head and face. She moved her gaze towards the red fox, and she saw that he had a half smirk as well as a raised eyebrow, and it seemed that he had put a note to the picture, _You just can't keep your paws off my tail, Fluff. It would be Common Courtesy if I did the same, wouldn't you agree?_ to which she _eeeped_ , almost dropped her phone and grabbed her teardrop-like and fluffy tail that was wiggling like crazy, with one of her paws, thinking that he had touched it, while she was peacefully asleep. She managed to get her blush under control as well as her crazy tail that was acting on its own a bit too much, and she thought about how she was going to interrogate the sly fox as to find out if he had done what she thought he had done.

She activated her screen again and looked at the picture, which now made her feel giddy, seeing that Nick didn't have a problem with her being so close to him and remembering that night when he had comforted her. While looking at the picture, she managed to spot another detail, a detail she had previously missed in her rush. His auburn paw was on her cheek, with one of her drooped ears hanging off of it as well, thus she touched it like it was still there, while looking at the picture, and rubbed the area lightly and slowly, while feeling the warmth inside her increase.

 _You are a good mammal, Nick, you just don't want to acknowledge it…_

Judy thought upon the matter hard and in the end, chose to put the picture as a wallpaper, as she liked it very much. She knew that he had gone through her other pictures and had probably seen them all but there wasn't anything special, altho he had breached her privacy, she didn't feel that bad but that didn't mean that she was going to leave her phone vulnerable to the sneaky fox ever again, thus she put a password on with a smile. She was going to check something else but heard a familiar voice, a familiar voice that she hated with all her might.

 _Weaselton…_

And there he was, walking down the lobby with Thane by his side, the weasel that killed a mammal in front of her innocent-then eyes, the weasel that still was a cop, a lieutenant at that… A lieutenant at the prestigious Precinct One, who was known probably by many in the crime world, and yet he still had his high position in the PD. It was beyond her how it was possible, and she wanted to do something about it, something to wobble his sense of safety, but she immediately remembered Nick's words to lay low, until they figured out a good and solid plan. She had to keep her head low, thus she lowered her gaze to her phone, trying not to attract any unwanted attention to herself from the criminal duo.

But it seemed that fate wasn't on her side, as she heard the hoarse and dreadful voice of Duke who yelled, "Flopsy, get your sleazy ass here!"

 _Sweet cheese and crackers…_

She slowly moved her gaze towards the weasel and saw that he was waiting with his partner, who was looking at something in his notebook, thus she jumped off the bench, without her energetic-self, and approached them as normally as she could, the fear inside her core making her think that they probably knew something, something that was supposed to be only known by her and Nick.

She got in front of them and looked at Weaselton, his bent whiskers and scruffy fur almost making her to grimace in disgust at his condition and disrespect towards the uniform, but she kept her tongue inside, remembering that this was just the tip of his disrespect. She noticed him eye her with malice and heard him say, "You are coming with us today. Show you around the city, country girl, so you can see you how things are done here. Who knows, maybe you could fit in, Flopsy. You're filled with secrets after all. Who knows what more you hiding," he added and eyed her thoroughly, making her heart to beat faster, and her anxiety to start filling her quickly because of his choice of words and look of distrust.

 _Does he know?! He can't… I am to go with them?! They will probably kill me. It can't be…_

She got her thoughts under control, trying not to show her emotions in front of the corrupt cops and get them to think that something was wrong.

 _No one knows, only me and Nick know about that. They probably just want to toy with me the whole day._

She figured that in order not to have the worst day in her life and just a bad one, she had to grovel, which was something that she just never did, but in order to play the game Nick had told her to, she had to do that as it would help them expose both officers' apparent wrongdoings. Thus she said, "Thank you, Sir, for giving me the opportunity," with a smile, which looked real but was just a very good mask. If only Nick could've seen her, he would've probably said that she was top-notch hustler material.

The weasel apparently didn't like her jovial attitude and pulled his toothpick from between his teeth, and threw it shortly after at her, but she didn't even flinch, just stood at attention and friendlily watched the weasel she wanted to beat the crap out of. "You're to watch and do what you're told. If you make problems and disobey our orders, I'll do everything I can to get your badge, Mopsy. Understand!?" It was more of an order than a question, as he scrunched his face hatefully, but Judy had already made up her mind, and she had decided that she was going to make progress even if she had to take it from him. But only verbally, anything more than that was going to result in broken teeth, concussions and black eyes.

"Yes, Sir," she answered and received a single grunt in reply from the scruffy weasel, and she just then registered that Thane was still there, visibly taking notes, but his ears indicated that he hadn't even been listening to them. She thought that he was a very strange and mysterious mammal. From her encounter with him at the corridor towards the armory, she remembered the way he had acted. Like he knew what to say and what not to, unlike Weaselton. He seemed very cunning and clever, something she had to be wary of and not push her luck, or he could be onto her. She knew that from how the coyote managed to make himself invisible, even tho he was in front of her, which meant that she wouldn't make any progress if she tried to pry information from him. On the other paw, Weaselton wasn't that bright.

Both predators began walking towards the exit and she followed suit, keeping some distance from them, as she didn't trust them very much, and subconsciously touched her duty belt, where her tazer and tranquilizer were, wanting to be sure that everything was there for a time in need, as she wasn't content in falling without a fight.

They reached a medium-sized sedan police cruiser that had a black pattern with white on top the ceiling that zigzagged through the two front doors and ended at the side skirts. It was pretty intimidating and actually looked dazzling. It seemed to be in a pristine condition, with its shinning black rims and polished surface that seemed to not even have even a single spot. Judy figured that it was the coyote that kept the cruiser and probably only drove, and she was right, as Thane went to the driver's side and entered. She could see the logo of the ZPD on the side door where Duke was, and it was then when she found out about the next problem. Where was she supposed to sit? She saw the weasel to open the front right door and turn back to look at her with a grin.

"You sit in the cage Flopsy, you have to understand how criminals feel like so you can think more like them," he mocked her, winked, and snorted, and she thought about his words, seeing the irony in them and wanting to make her retort because she had hanged around Nick a bit too much, but she managed to contain herself and bite her restless tongue.

"Yes, Sir," She waited for Duke to open the back door from inside, as it was the only way to do so, because if not, it wouldn't be hard for a criminal to be freed from the outside. She heard it open with a click, and entered. That's when the smell hit her. But it wasn't that kind of disgusting smell. No. It was the smell that came when a car was recently produced, the smell of new. But she didn't believe that this cruiser she was in was such. Who knew what the coyote did to preserve the pristine vehicle. She could try and pry but decided against it, remembering what the weasel had told her, and knowing that he would try and get under her skin if she was to be a nuisance to him.

She was in the cage, which was pretty big, probably so that it can _accommodate_ larger mammals. It had a steel fence that looked very solid and extended from the floor to the ceiling, making it impossible to go to the front without going through it, which was probably impossible. She never had been in such a car, and it was pretty exciting for her to be able to experience all of it, even if it was with a corrupt cop and a murderer.

Judy heard some random radio chatter and saw the weasel to turn back to look at her. "Comfy, hippity-hop?" He chuckled in satisfaction, which made Judy to feel repulsed greatly but she didn't show it. "I don't want you touching anything, got it? You can only walk around and look. If I see you do something retarded, I'll cuff you to a sewer grate. You carrot-pullin' hick," he threatened and returned to his usual position, but not before grabbing his coffee and slurping from it loudly, probably on purpose.

"Understood, Lieutenant," she answered in the most formal way possible and leaned into the comfortable seat she was in. It seemed that they were on an investigation… but the weasel was too vague. It didn't feel that bad in the back, as the cage made her feel more secure from both mammals in front but it wasn't enough to extinguish the anxiety that was bubbling in her. She didn't know where exactly they were going or why they had persuaded the Chief to take her with them. It just didn't make any sense, and they couldn't have asked him in the morning, so they couldn't have found out that she and Nick were witnesses. She really wanted to speak with him about this, but she hadn't taken his phone number, so it seemed almost impossible, and she berated herself for forgetting to ask him about it.

 _Dumb, dumb bunny…_

The car's engine roared to life and Thane put it into gear, thus starting to drive them all to their destination. Judy didn't know yet where they were heading at, and wanted to ask but remembered what the weasel had told her, so she kept silent, not liking the situation even one bit as they weren't showing her anything, just trying to intimidate her as well as have fun on her behalf. The doe heard radio chatter, which wasn't anything important, and then saw the window, where Duke was seated, to roll down and him to peek his head out. He wasn't even wearing his seat belt… _That scruffy disrespectful weasel_ …

"Get the fuck out of here before I put you in the slammer!" she heard him yell out of the window, peeked through hers and saw a female goat with a backpack that was now running at the direction they came from. It was very odd, and his behavior was rude and very unprofessional, yelling and cursing from a police vehicle of Precinct One while on duty. It was unacceptable for her.

 _How are you still a cop… you murderer…_

Judy tried to chase away her thoughts because she knew that they would manifest on her body and could get her in trouble, so she needed a distraction and a distraction she got.

"What's the case, Fang?" asked the weasel and Judy saw the coyote's ears to twitch, and he turned his head slightly at the weasel, his scorn clearly visible to her fixated eyes, and she wondered why the coyote was reacting as such.

"You talk too much Duke. You are forgetting yourself again," the coyote warned and Judy heard the weasel to scoff and saw him turn towards her, with an evil smirk, while moving his jaw left and right.

"You worry too much"-he returned mockingly while staring at the doe-"she is with us. Aint that right, Flopsy?" Judy could see the gleam in his red eyes, which looked quite terrifying if she was to be honest with herself. The question was a strange one but she understood its meaning quickly and before answering, the weasel spoke again. "You aint gonna sing to someone what we talk about here, are you, country girl?" he asked again but this time she saw his playful expression to change to one of seriousness, and it seemed that he was watching her with great concentration, and she felt slight fear from the thoughts that he could find out something about the previous day, so she summed up her courage and played along.

"Of course, Lieutenant, I won't." She used very small sentences, knowing that the weasel didn't like to listen to her talk too much, and not giving him a reason to try and insult her or mock her, even if he did it, but she remembered what had happened when she had talked back and wasn't willing to take it again, when she was in an enclosed space with him, not trusting even his partner to protect her from his hatred and impulsive nature. A memory when the corpse of the kangaroo fell to the ground with the crimson blood soaking her clothes and spilling on the dirty sandstone pavement flashed through her eyes, filling her with uncomfortableness and angst.

She felt that she wasn't being herself, that she was turning a blind eye, that she was forsaking herself and indulging into the forbidden, the rotten, by not taking action. It was a good thing that Nick had explained everything she needed to understand, thus she could suppress herself from acting, even if she felt extremely awful about it. It was like trying to rip a piece from herself and it wasn't easy even one bit. She wanted justice for what the weasel had done, she wanted it with all her heart. There was the possibility that he could harm others as well, and if he did it again in front of her now-stained eyes, she didn't know if she could stay idle, remembering how she had Nick back then to hold her back from _killing herself_.

"Good," He turned away from her, grunting afterwards because of who knows what, making her relax that she wasn't in his sights for the time being, thus she thanked the Carrot Lord for hearing her plea. "You know, that ass-eating thickhead is late for 3 days now, what am I supposed to say to the bo-"

"Not here!" Thane interrupted Duke harshly from what he was about to say, and Judy had to grab her sentient ears from going up at the excitement that she was about hear something important, knowing full well that Thane would see her in the rear-view mirror. She heard the weasel to sigh in dissatisfaction, probably because he couldn't speak freely, and she now knew for sure that it was Thane who was the one in charge, the one who was in control. If she was to get something out of the weasel, it was going to be when he was alone but that wasn't very promising, as she knew who he was, and it was quite nerve-racking but she had to try when the opportunity arose, nevertheless.

Duke mumbled something, and Judy managed to detect her obnoxious nickname in his voice but pretty much nothing else. She really wanted to talk with someone, as she wasn't the silent type and the atmosphere inside the car was suffocating her as well as the presence of the murderous weasel, who she didn't want to be even close to her. She saw the weasel to try and throw his toothpick out of the window but he hit the door frame and it fell underneath the seat, which was immediately registered by Thane and he turned to look at the weasel with a very cold glare, a glare that looked eerie for the grey doe.

The weasel scoffed angrily but submitted, thus he jumped on the car's floor and tried to find his toothpick. Why was he so afraid of the coyote was what she was asking herself. Without even speaking, he could make the weasel do what he wanted to. It was strange that the mammal had so much power and authority, and the doe took note of that, not wanting to underestimate him sometime in the future. He looked like a mammal that was just like Nick but without his sarcasm and with a lot more mana. From her observations, she could see that Nick didn't like physical confrontations, which meant that he was a mammal that relied solely on his tongue to get him out of dire situations, yet she remembered when he had confronted the buck at Jesse and H., and how he showed a part of himself that displayed that part of him, the violent and threatening one, the one filled with authority that managed to break the buck's courage.

It was a very interesting sight back then, a similar yet different sight she saw just a minute ago with Thane and Duke. But Thane's had a lot more weight to it, which she figured was his violent nature, or was it as such? She needed to see in order to find out, and because she had started comparing Thane and Nick, she wondered if there was some deeply hidden part of the coyote as well, like Nick's tender and loving one, because the friction of her cogs of her cognitive empathy was starting to increase and the gears to move faster and faster.

But that was halted because the weasel coughed in the nastiest way possible, supposably he had found his golden nugget, and jumped on his seat. But she didn't see him throw it out of the open window, just saw him turn to look at her with an evil grin. "Here, to clean those filthy flat teeth of yours, Flopsy," he quiped and held the toothpick through one of the cage's many holes. She looked at him with confusion but then saw his grin to turn into a frown, and she understood that it wasn't a suggestion but an order, an idiotic order but an order, nevertheless.

 _If mine are filthy, is there even a word for yours?_

"Thank you, Lieutenant," she returned blankly and carefully took the toothpick, which was wet, and she knew that the wetness was his vile spit, making her almost break the soaked piece of wood from anger but she held her cool and carefully, out of both mammals sights, cleaned the spit onto the edge of the leather seat and afterwards put it into her pocket with a small smirk.

"What's the case, Fang?" asked the weasel and Judy anticipated that the coyote would try to shut him up again but he seemed unphased, surprisingly.

"A female kangaroo shot in the head in the old town of Sahara Square"-Judy almost gasped at the newfound information-"they are waiting for us to take a look. Why they didn't send the detectives to do that work but us... I'm clueless," explained Thane and Judy's blood froze. Duke was going to investigate himself… They were going to that awful place again, and she hoped that her emotions wouldn't betray her when they get there. How deep had corruption spread its tentacles, how many were involved. So many questions, so limited answers.

The weasel grinned, looked at Thane, and ahemed which attracted his attention. "Gerulf," was the only thing the weasel uttered and Judy could see the look of realization the coyote developed. _Gerulf? What or who is that?!_

"Why?" asked Thane with a hint of… anger?

Duke chuckled, looked back at Judy, winked at her, and turned to face Thane again. "He seemed to have loved changing where he invests his money and time, resulting in the dissatisfaction of one of those investors," was the cryptic response, which didn't make any sense to the doe, as she had no idea for who or what they were talking about.

"And that was the only way?" asked the coyote, almost losing his plain voice for a second, which was very peculiar and interesting at the same time for Judy. They seemed to be talking about something that Thane didn't approve of but what was it, that was the question. Were they talking about why Duke killed the kangaroo? Was she the so called 'Gerulf'? She stopped thinking about it and kept listening, with both ears to her sides, while being careful not to let them go up instinctively and get Thane to catch her on the rear-view mirror.

"It doesn't matter anymore," deadpanned the weasel and turned away from the coyote. Judy could feel the hot tension in the car even if the words were scarce, and the only thing that she could understand was their body language, which showed hostility, impatience, and disapprovement.

Just as she was about to start thinking about it again, the car hit a hole on the street, making Thane to curse bitterly, Duke to laugh and receive a threatening look, and Judy to look out of the window. She could now see that they had driven across the bridge that was between southeast Downtown and northeast Savanna Central, and they just entered Sahara Square, definitely heading to the place where she and Nick had almost lost their lives. The doe felt an icy chill in the air as well as one in her spine, a feeling of dread and trepidation. It wasn't good for her, and she was afraid that she may accidently say something from impulse if the weasel did or conveyed something.

 _You can do it Judy, this is what you signed for, you will manage!_

 _You didn't sign for this but you are already in it. There is no turning back._

The car stopped slowly, and Judy could see that they were in the same area, the warehouse being just behind the yellow police tape, with a few officers behind it. She saw Thane remove his seat belt and exit the car, with Duke who was starting to do the same, without the belt part, as he hadn't put it the whole ride. She understood that if she let the weasel to exit, she would be staying in the cage till they got back, as the only way to open the doors was through the front, to which she didn't have access to. So she almost yelled, "Liuetanant!"

Duke stopped midway out of the door, came back slowly, and leaned over the seat, looking at Judy through the metal fence. "What?" he spat with visible annoyance to which she removed her seat belt and stepped onto the seat, trying to match her height with the weasel's but couldn't exactly do so because he was slightly taller than her.

"Would you let me come with you, Sir? That way I can learn something new," she explained fruitily and tried to look as cute as possible, with a tilted head to the side, paws huddled to her chest, ears erect with one half-bent forward. A cute sight indeed, a sight which even managed to subdue the hateful weasel, who just huffed in mild agitation.

"Whatever," he answered and opened her door from the front, getting Judy to exit quickly and wait for him, while feeling satisfied that she would be able to be productive.

He exited the car after half a minute, having done who knows what inside, sluggishly and started walking towards the grey doe. He stopped very close and looked down on her, which drooped her ears and the height difference was pretty visible, him being half a head taller and it seemed that he was trying to be intimidating, which was working not because of how he looked but of what he had done and was capable of doing, which Judy knew all too well, making her subconsciously to start reaching for her weapon but stopped herself, knowing full well that the weasel wouldn't do anything in front of witnesses and while on duty but there still was that doubt about what if she was wrong, as he seemed like a very unpredictable mammal.

"Listen here, you dumb hick"-he leaned closer to her-"you will stay close to us and will not touch anything. And if you do, you will remain a ticket-bitch all your career. Understand?" he demanded and she almost coughed, not liking his breath even one bit as it smelled foul. She knew why he didn't want her to touch anything. It would tamper with the manipulation of the evidence and get him into trouble.

So she did the most rational thing and just nodded, getting the weasel to grin and pat her on the shoulder, to which she flinched and almost hit him but her restraint was great, and she was controlling herself very well, at least for now. She wanted to hit him so hard, to remove that grin out of his disgusting face. He touched her with his bloodied paws, the paws that had taken a life and probably not only one. For her, it was worse than her experience with cleaning duty. She preferred to be in touch with feces than to be touched by his stained paws from his victims.

The weasel laughed at her reaction, removed the ever present toothpick from between his teeth and passed it to her, which she took from the side that didn't have moisture, while he got a new one from his pocket. "Follow," he ordered and started walking towards the crime scene he had created the day before, followed suit by an invisibly disgusted Judy, who at the first chance threw his toothpick in the trash, with the one that was in her pocket as well.

They passed the yellow tape and headed towards Thane, who was talking with what seemed to be a female cow, who was twice his size and was inside a Tyvek suit, and she seemed to be explaining something to the Sergeant.

"Melba, what are you doing here? Did the milk in you get coagulated, so they stopped buying it from you or what?" the weasel jabbed with a wide grin, while receiving a disapproving look from Thane and a disinterested one from the cow.

"Lieutenant," she acknowledged his presence and kept looking through her notes. Judy could see that they were on the spot where Duke had shot the kangaroo, and she managed to register the smell of rot, the smell of death, which invaded her nostrils and made vomit to start climbing up her throat but she managed to stop herself. She could see the body that was covered by a plastic nylon with dried out blood around the sandstone slabs that was now staining them.

"What happened here, Daisy Cow?" asked the weasel teasingly, seemingly trying to get under the cow's skin but she seemed unphased. Judy was baffled at the weasel's nerve but kept quiet, not wanting to be in his sights.

"The victim was killed by a 9mm firearm from close range. The bullet pierced the left ophthalm, destroying it completely and then went through the orbit, which-

"What the fuck? Speak zootopian for fuck sake," yelled the weasel and Judy could at last see the cow looking at him with mild irritation.

"As I said, the bullet pierced the back of the skull and hit the wall of that building"-she pointed towards the building behind her, which looked abandoned and old-"we found the bullet and are going to send it to the lab so we can see if the firearm is registered, which I doubt as only authorized mammals can carry lethal weapons in Zootopia." The cow skimmed through her notes and found what she was searching for. "We found a revolver tucked in the back of her jeans, a phone without a sim card. But there was no id or wallet. There were reading glasses in her front right pocket and a note saying '23:10, be there, cash on paw' and nothing else. We searched the warehouse and found that recently there were some boxes that were moved but nothing to indicate what was in them."

"What about fur or pawprints?" asked Weaselton and Judy almost sent him a glare, thinking what would happen if she said right at that moment that he was the murderer. Probably would sound insane to everyone around her, without the weasel and coyote of course, so she banished the idiotic thought and listened.

"Only tire marks that were on the sidewalk but nothing groundbreaking and there were no prints or fur,"

"So no clues, no witnesses, due to the time being late and the region pretty abandoned. The fuck are we here for? Sound like an open-and-shut case to me le-"

"We'll look around, Duke," interjected Thane firmly, holding his intensifying glare on the weasel and getting him to scoff in surrender.

"Follow me, Mopsy," ordered Duke and waddled away. Judy followed and saw that they were heading at the alley, where her and Nick hid, which got her heart to beat against her rib cage viciously. _Does he know? He can't know!_ The weasel stopped before the rusty green container and pulled out his phone. "Stay here, country girl," he said and walked away from the alley, probably not wanting to be heard.

Judy took that as an opportunity to try and get something out of the investigation, thinking that they hadn't probably found everything, so she walked inside the darker alley and got to the corner of the rusty dumpster, where she guessed Duke was when he came to check out the ruckus she had made back then. She didn't remember much because her brain had shut itself down in order for her to stay silent.

The only parts she remembered was the extremely comfortable warmth Nick was giving her with his body because she had lost a lot, when waiting for the misdeed to be seen, as well as his breathing and scent. Then, there was the walking but only bits and pieces were present in her memory with the final part where she let herself to come back into the reality with the breaking of the dam. Those were the only things she remembered after Duke killed the kangaroo.

She could see where they had laid but nothing that could actually lead to them as there was no visible fur and the pawprints on the bottles and boxes could've been on random mammals who threw them there. Just as she was about to go back, something caught her searching eye and made her heart to skip a beat. It was a toothpick that lay on the ground, a toothpick that looked very familiar. She quickly understood what that was and excitement filled her core that she had found a clue and proof but then came the intruding voice of the weasel who was exactly next to her.

"What you found there, Cottontail?" he asked and leaned closer. How did he manage to get by her without her hearing him was beyond her. She could lie that it was nothing but knew that the weasel had spotted the evidence already.

"Just a toothpick, Sir," she answered and faced Duke, who picked up and put the evidence in a plastic bag with a piece of cloth and zipped it shut.

"You have keen eyes, Flopsy. This could lead to something indeed. Or nothing at all," he jeered and chuckled. She wanted to hit him in the nose at that very moment but the fear was greater than her animosity, thus it held her still. She knew that he would destroy it and that there wasn't any chance to convict him in the murder anymore. She could tell somebody what he did but as Nick had told her. Who would believe a newbie, especially a bunny…

"Cmon, hippity-hop," the weasel said and they started walking towards the car. Judy saw an opportunity to get some information from him as his partner was nowhere in sight. She knew what would do the trick.

"Sir, because you have a lot experience in these things"-she faked shyness by looking away for a second-"what do you think happened here and why?" she asked with a curious tone, getting the weasel to smirk in satisfaction at the attention he was receiving.

"See, Flopsy, this is what they don't teach ya in the academy"-he spat his toothpick, while still on the crime scene, seemingly not caring, and put another in the same place and looked at her while walking-"and it is obvious. Gang matters," he answered, and she could see that they were nearing the car, so she pressed her luck.

"But why did they kill her?" Judy asked and saw the weasel's hesitation but as there was no one to stop him, he answered like she thought he would.

"Seems to me that she was a means to an end"-he looked around nervously-"they didn't need her so they removed her. Of course it's just a guess," he finished and smirked and they were now at the doors of the car.

"You are very insightful, Sir," she complimented him, her tactic of being friendly and feeding the weasel's ego earning results, and now she knew the reason for the murder and his association with the unknown gang. But something was wrong. She saw the weasel to stiffen after she said those words and his arms started twitching. It was one of his impulsive phases again, she guessed.

"I am but it didn't came about by screwing around all day, hippity-fuck," he spat and took a step towards her with a scrunched face. Judy almost took a step back at the sudden change of demaneor but held her ground as the weasel seemed to halt before her, a bit too close to her liking, yet she didn't move or say anything. It seemed to her that he didn't mean that for her and something just snapped in him but who only he knew what the reason for that was. "Things aren't simple and easy here. But there may be some bread in you after all," he added and threw his toothpick at her, hitting her badge, the spit splattering over its shiny and not-so-pristine surface anymore, and falling on the ground.

 _How dare he!_

Oh… how she wanted to give him a piece of her mind, oh... how much she wanted to push him to eat the dust off the ground for disrespecting her achievement, the police force, and the trust of zootopian's but she couldn't, it would jeopardize everything. It would get Nick in trouble as well, and she couldn't do that to him. She heard the weasel to snort, saw him turn around, and waited for him to climb in the car and heard the backdoor to unlock shortly after he entered. She jumped in and seated herself with an audible click.

The car's engine growled quickly after her entrance, and they started moving with an average speed, and it seemed that they were heading back to Savanna Central. It was pretty silent inside the car except for the random radio chatter from other officers and that started getting Judy bored, so she took that time to re-arrange everything that had happened. From her observations, it seemed that the weasel had a friend in the chain of command as no normal mammal would pass on a case to him and his partner when just a detective could do it.

It didn't make sense otherwise, and she remembered what the weasel had said 'Gerulf', which spoke nothing to her, but it appeared to be a code word, which Thane quickly understood and stopped asking further, and she could remember from his expression that he wasn't very satisfied which was odd. And then, the crime scene that was manipulated by the lieutenant, as he managed to spot her, when she found the toothpick. But then again, he threw another one when they were exiting the scene. What was the point of that?

 _How did he get close to me without me hearing him…_ She huffed quietly from frustration and crossed her arms, occasionally looking at the rear-view mirror to see if the coyote was looking at her but she could never spot him do so. She could try and get some more information out from the weasel, liking the outcome from the very short talk, from which she found out that he is definitely working for a gang. The problem for her were his unpredictable outbursts that managed to grip her heart in fear when he did them, even when she was as friendly as possible, in addition with her crazy fawning.

Her thoughts were interrupted when she felt the car to stop and hear Weaselton to exit quickly. The fast-developing situation caught her off guard and she heard the door from Thane's side to close as well, making her to quickly remove her seatbelt and try to open her door, which wasn't budging, and she started banging on the window and yelling at them to attract their attention but they didn't seem to care one bit and kept walking. She could see that they were in a residential area somewhere in Savanna Central at a gas station she didn't know.

"Stupid fu-" she clamped her mouth shut as a curse almost exited her still-innocent mouth. She knew that the reason for her behavior was that she just hanged around mammals that acted as such, thus getting her subconsciously to adopt some of their manners and traits but she was glad that she had managed to avoid the slip-up.

Accepting her fate to wait inside for who knows how long, she sat crossed-legged on the comfortable seat and tried to find something to do. She wanted to do her job very much but it seemed that it wasn't going to be possible when she was in the so called 'cage'. She needed a distraction and a big one, one that could get her to stop thinking upon the depressing reality, the reality that she was in a hopeless situation without the ability to change it.

And a distraction she got when she felt her phone to vibrate inside her pants pocket, which she quickly pulled out with excitement, thinking that it could some of her friends or siblings but what she saw made her puzzled. It was an unknown number. That made her hesitate if she should pick it up, thinking that it could be just a prank call but finally accepted to do so, as there wasn't anything else to do.

"Hello?" she asked and waited for an answer but an answer wasn't coming, only static which pumped her curiousity. "Anyone there?"

Her excitement died down as it seemed that either there was no one on the other side or someone was pulling a lame joke on her, so she decided that she would just hang up and just as she was about to do so, a very familiar voice started speaking.

"Officer Carrots, I want to report an alluring red fox in my house… Oh wait… cancel that"-a chuckle was heard-"it's only me," quiped the mammal on the other end, sleekly and with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, a voice she very-well knew, a voice she actually wanted to hear from the moment she found out about her assignment, a voice that renewed her energy that was drained from the dissatisfactory morning.

 _Nick…_

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	11. Unfit for Duty Part 2

**Unfit for Duty Part** **2**

* * *

"Carrots? What now… fox got your tongue?" quipped Nick and that made Judy smile because that was what she actually needed, someone to talk to, someone to distract her from her bad morning adventure that had just started, which she didn't know when and how it was going to end. His sarcasm was something that she really liked, even if it was getting under her skin most of the time. Right now being rather appealing to her.

"Hellllooooo?... What the—did I get the wrong numb-"

"NICK!" she yelled from excitement at last into the mic and heard a groan from the other side as well as a chuckle afterwards.

"Heh-h, did you manage to turn into a sloth? I'm impressed," he teased her slow reaction but she didn't care about that, there were more important questions to be asked, lest she didn't know how much time she had until she wasn't alone, knowing full well that she shouldn't talk on the phone, especially with Nick in front of the two corrupt cops.

"Wait—how did you get my number?" she asked in genuine surprise and started searching for an answer within her mind but apparently was finding none.

The tod laughed fruitily and answered, "I guessed it. Didn't you know? I used to be a magician."

Judy scoffed in irritation, since she didn't want to play his game as time was running out, therefor she needed to cut to the chase. "You took it without my permission!" she scolded and scrunched her face in distaste, while occasionally looking out of the window to see if anyone was coming back.

The heavy sigh was very audible from the other side. "Was I supposed to not?" he nagged cheekily and that made her to huff in agitation.

"Of course!" she exclaimed and stood on the seat as quickly as lightning, not liking the fact that she couldn't see the reynard in front of her, since she could feel his wide smirk through the phone.

"… Tck, tck, Fluff. What about that picture you took of me"-the doe quickly closed her mouth and sat on her rump, while her heart started beating harder-" did you ask me for my permission?" he probed sleekly, and she didn't have anything to say about that in her defense, nothing good. He hadn't forgotten and it was expected of him not to. If she only had just started with something else. Now… now she had checkmated herself pretty badly.

The doe started looking anywhere but at the phone even if he couldn't see her, and with her free paw began touching her drooped ear. "It was supposed to—tobeonlymeinit!" she sputtered the obvious lie and heard a hard laugh from the red fox, which got her nervously to do the same but it sounded more like hiccups than anything else.

After several moments, the tod stopped the ruckus he was creating and began playfully. "As you wish, Fluff. I'll get you to admit it to me someday—did you find my gift?" he asked and her brows went up quickly in confusion but then, she understood what he had meant, which brought up instantaneously the question, the question she had reserved patiently aside for him since reading that note. Had he touched her tail? But if she asked now without seeing his face, he could lie to her and she wouldn't notice, and that was very unacceptable. She needed to know and an idea popped in her little but bright head, a very good idea that was going to solve her problem. She hoped that he had it, after all, he could afford at least a good phone after making so much illegal money.

"Nick, can you put muzzletime on?" she asked with hints of pleadingness but didn't hear anything from his part for some time, and that made her think that the phone had lost the connection but then came a very slow and labored sigh, a sigh which attracted her utmost attention.

"Not now, Ju—Fluff…" babbled the vulpine somewhat gloomily, and she registered his change of demeanor easily, making her to start questioning why he wasn't willing to do so and what was wrong.

"Please, Nick. I want to see you!" she begged beatifically and the tod groaned from frustration at the doe's wish, which seemed to be strongly holding the conversation off. She heard rustling sounds and at last, on the screen of her phone appeared an image, an image that only showed Nick's maw. She could see his purple nose and it seemed that his fur was pretty ruffled under his creamy neck, and very surprisingly, he had forgotten to remove his whiskers, which had grown a bit. She waited with anticipation the camera to move towards his face but nothing like that happened, and she saw him to start smirking at the lens.

"Nothing can satisfy you, can it?" he teased and licked the side of his maw, making Judy remember that he could see her as well, her dissatisfaction being clearly visible to the reynard. She scowled slightly and tilted her head to the side.

"Don't act dumb, Slick. Unlike my parents, you know very well how to use a camera. Move it up!" she ordered but saw the tod's smirk to fall slowly and turn into a frown, his nose twitching a few times in the process, something she had never ever seen, which made her to snort.

"You don't want to se—"

She interrupted him, knowing full well that he was about to try and persuade her to stop pushing. "I do!" She sensed that something was wrong because he was acting rather funnily, like he was hiding something, something that may have happened to him, thus she developed a dead-serious look that got the vulpine to sigh in surrender and get her tail to wiggle in excitement.

"Fine…" he mumbled and started moving the camera towards his face and when he did, she was stricken with shock. What she could clearly see was the fatigue in his emerald-tired eyes as well as the gruesome black eye on his left that was half closed as well, which made her to gasp loudly and eyes to widen. Nick only rolled his peepers from dissatisfaction of having to talk about his misadventure, while the doe was starting to get to conclusions.

Nick, th—what happened… why? Did—how did they find out"-she looked again through the window as to be sure-"who… from what—who did this to—"she stuttered half sentences but Nick managed to stop her hysteria.

"Tut-tut-tut. With the speed you were going, you could have written a whole book, Fluff," he quipped and chuckled at his own joke but the doe wasn't at all in the mood for that, as she was worried immeasurably about her friend, about what and why that had happened to him. It seemed that he wasn't willingly going to talk about it without her asking, so she calmed herself from the panic and re-ordered her thoughts and questions. Maybe she was being dramatic. Maybe he had an accident and fell or hit himself on something. But she didn't believe that Nick Wilde was such a clumsy mammal, a mammal that had almost slipped away from her, when she confronted him for the first time, his agility being probably even better than hers. No… someone had done that to him and she was going to find out who that individual was.

The glare she was sending him managed to get his ears to go flat against his skull and at last, he groaned and started explaining, "Look, it was just an accident"-Judy huffed in disbelief and the tod scratched the fur on top of his head-"no, really! Finnick isn't to blame!"

When she heard who had done that to him, she jumped from her seat and anger started boiling inside of her, getting her energy to amplify but she didn't have anywhere to fume it onto, so she started talking more to herself than anyone else, "That little fox… when I catch him. Oh, is he going to pay for what he has done… I'll give him two!" she yelled and bashed the seat she was standing on with her tough foot, getting air to escape underneath it. She wasn't looking at Nick's reactions at that very moment because she was thinking on how she can get the fennec fox back for what he had done. "Then… I'll bring him to jail, so he can sleep on the cold concrete floor…"

"Judy!" exclaimed the tod soundly, which broke her stupor, and she could now see the seriousness that was etched on his face, and she couldn't believe it. Why was he doing that, why did he have to endure such abuse. She didn't like that one bit, so she sat sharply and started grumpily.

"Why are you defending him"-she pointed a finger towards the camera, her short beige claw being very visible to the red vulpine-"look at what he has done to you? How can you—"

She saw his sad smile, which managed to stop her from continuing, and she submitted temporary, giving him a small chance to explain further. "I am touched, Fluff. My knight in grey armor"-he winked at her but she didn't even twitch-"okay. As I said, it was an accident. You can remember that we actually borrowed his van in a very untraditional way"-the doe scoffed-"… After I drove you to your humble home"-he snorted and the doe narrowed her eyes with a small frown-"I drove back to return it. But when I parked it in front of his home and exited the van. Well…"-Nick pointed towards his left half-shut black eye-"I was greeted by his metal bat right off the bat,"-he started snickering but it seemed that he was the only one feeling as such-"not in the spirits, huh?"

Judy didn't give him the opportunity to stray away from his explanation and just stayed silent with a very unsatisfied expression, an expression that was telling him to continue. "Hmm… So he hits me pretty hard. As you can see. And then started swinging again but managed to recognize me and didn't hit me again. Thank the Blueberry Lord for that. It appeared that he didn't know that it was me that took it, so I just expressed my apologies and went on my way with a small bump on my poor eye."

She could see Nick's attempt to make the situation seem less severe as well as his nervous smirk, which was easily detectable, and she guessed that it was because he was pretty tired, remembering very well how he had woken up earlier to get her refreshments and drive her home. She couldn't yet feel the fatigue from not sleeping enough, and she knew that it was going to appear at some time throughout the day but there were more important matters right now to attend to other than her personal ones.

"Did he at least apologize?" she asked without scorn and received a wholehearted laugh from the reynard, which got her perplexed and her ears went up as well as one of her eyebrows. The tod was shaking from laughter so hard that he almost dropped his phone.

After he managed to get himself in control, which took some time, he at last started, "Finnick to say that he is sorry? Ha! I would rather believe that you don't like meat than him saying that," the vulpine added and Judy's brows went up in surprise. _Why would he say that?_

"But… I don't like to eat meat, Nick…" she clarified oddly and got a doubtful look from the reynard.

"Of course you don't," he reassured doubtfully with a mocking tone and snickered but didn't give her time to react and added, "The things I do for you, Fluff." That comment managed to get her nose to twitch because his words were devoid of any sarcasm or other hidden meaning. He had said them seriously even if he had tried to fake that seriousness with a smirk. She reflected upon what he had done for her and it indeed wasn't little.

Why was he doing that? He had told her that she was a dumb bunny and then said that he was lying just to make her quit. He acted as if he didn't care yet comforted her, nevertheless. He didn't leave when he could, he was beaten because of her. All of that made her feel appreciated, cared for… loved? She wasn't sure but just the idea made her body to flush, and she didn't want that to happen at that very moment because what she wanted to find out was the truth.

She exhaled slowly, trying to lower her body temperature, sent him an angry glare and then remembered why she had asked him to put muzzletime. Not wasting any more time in asking the next question, a question that was going to be direct, so she could see his genuine reaction. "Nick, did you touch my tail?" she probed very hard and the question got the fox taken aback very quickly but realization quickly entered his mind and he grinned madly, which wasn't good news for her, since her plan was to make him speechless and not the opposite.

"I don't know… Did you touch mine?" he retorted and all his teeth were visible, with his long white canines in front that she swore she saw to shine for a second. The question managed to bring down the doe's courage quite a bit, and she felt cornered but not yet without an exit.

"It's different!" she returned soundly and the vulpine started snickering from her reaction, to which she looked away from the camera, while feeling her right foot start thumping the air from her newly arisen agitation that was starting to take over her.

"Don't worry—I haven't, but if I did in the future, you will know for sure," he sent her a wink and she blushed from his words, feeling somewhat greatly flattered and a bit aroused from the suggestion… or was it a promise? She wanted to aim the conversation at something else now, having received her answer and seeing no deception in his eyes and just then, she registered his surroundings. He was sitting in what looked like a yard with overgrown grass, more like weeds, and a few trees; as well as a wall on one side; and a back of a warehouse, a warehouse that seemed quite familiar to her memory.

"Nick, where are you at," she beamed with curiosity and leaned closer to the thin screen.

"Uh"-he looked around himself-"I'm at the airfield," he answered leerily with one brow up.

That made her scowl because she didn't understand why he was living like a homeless mammal when he had the means not to. "Why don't you get a proper home, Nick. You have the money!" she asked frustratingly and saw him to motion with his head his disapproval.

"And miss all this beauty and calm? Not a chance, Carrots"-she huffed in defeat and saw Nick's sarcastic expression turn into a curious one-"where are you at?"

She rolled her eyes because of the silly situation she was in but at the same time was relieved that she could speak with Nick about the problem she was experiencing and was in. "I'm inside the cage of a police cruiser…" She saw his straight-face, and then he just burst out laughing like a madmammal, so she decided to add, "In Thane's cruiser." That managed to kill all the laughter in the red fox, and she could now see… worry? She saw him stand up from the chair or ground, she couldn't tell, with his worry turning into outright panic.

"They know? Where are you?! I'm coming to get you, just tell me—"

"Nick!" she interrupted abruptly and that made him stop his sprint towards the warehouse. "No one but us knows. It's just that they want to mock me all day and have fun on my behalf. That's it," she explained calmly and saw the worry in the vulpine's initials to dissipate but not entirely, which made her feel again appreciated and cared for, stirring that same feeling inside of her. "They can't because I didn't tell anyone. Only if you did. Then it's probably possible," she reassured and saw the bemused look Nick was sending her.

"I wouldn't ever do that, Fluff"-he exhaled slowly and she could see the stress that had manifested upon his body starting to fade away, and she almost called him cute because of his behavior and worried appearance-"so what did you do today with those two role model cops?" he mocked sardonically and Judy managed to detect that, smiling in response but then scowling because of her recent unwelcomed memories.

"Duke investigated his own crime scene and destroyed the rest of the evidence"-she started caressing one of her ears with her free paw-"after that, he snapped on me but I managed to find out that he works for a gang," she summarized neatly and saw the look of guilt on the reynard's face.

"I'm sorry that you have to go through this. I know it must be hard on you b—you have to remain strong. You will do that, okay?" he more like demanded, and she felt her eyes to quiver from her raging emotions, and if he was in front of her, she would've hugged him with all her might, maybe even do something else if she was to be truthful to herself. It seemed that the vulpine saw her want and chuckled because of it. "Good thing I'm not there or you would've suffocated me with your endless affection," he teased her jovial nature and made a small smile, to which Judy giggled and bit one of her fingers sultrily.

"Why do you act as if you don't like it, Slick? Don't tell me you are shy?" she tried to find out and saw his hesitation but just before he would answer, she heard footsteps coming closer to the car, her ears going up immediately, and she felt a rush of energy as well as fear. "Nick, I have to hang up, they are coming! I'll call you when I can," she blurted and quickly hanged up before the tod had a chance to respond.

She pushed the phone in her pocket and readjusted herself on the comfortable seat, trying to look like she wasn't doing anything nor had done even if she actually did. She felt very sweaty as well as nervous, and all of a sudden the temperature in the car started to seem unbearable to her, which made her start pulling her uniform's collar and play with her restless paws.

She heard and saw both mammals to enter but they didn't even bother to look at her and just stayed silent. The weasel was rubbing his rib cage on the left for an unknown reason while looking away from his partner and her. It was quite the sight but she didn't dare ask what they had done or have been doing, so she just stayed quiet. She heard the engine to roar to life and felt the car to start moving.

The air inside became even more suffocating, and she could see the tension between the two mammals in front of her, which made her very curious. But her curiosity died down after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence. She understood that the day was going to be long, boring, and unproductive… but there was nothing to be done about it, nothing at all.

* * *

It was almost early eve and Judy felt like crap. She had stayed inside the damn cage for the whole day, even when she pleaded to be let out, she was met with a heavy wall of resistance every single time. They had done nothing but patrol around, stop a few mammals for traffic violations and talking being almost non-existent. She felt like she didn't belong there because the only thing she had done was sit, listen, and just stay silent. When she had at last tried to initiate a conversation, she was met with a very vile curse from the weasel who throughout the whole day painfully groaned from time to time and touched the side of his rib cage. It was a very uncomfortable place to be at, with very uninteresting and dangerous mammals.

Judy just wanted to go home and sleep because the boredom and lack of rest was getting to her, as well the hunger that was eating away at her stomach but she didn't want to complain, knowing full well what would happen if she did, and she just didn't want to listen to any hostile words aimed at her direction, her temper starting to thin out, and knowing that she was losing control over herself because of that. The good thing about being tired was that it was dulling her senses and the effect wasn't that bad because of that fact.

The car stopped for who knows what time and Thane exited shortly after, which made her wide-eyed because Duke didn't follow suit. The whole day, Thane had kept the weasel on a leash, making him follow him around all the time, and she guessed that the coyote had heard when she had asked the weasel about information. Nevertheless, he was leaving the predator alone with her.

It was an opportunity, an opportunity she had to be careful with or it could be ruined entirely and get her into their sights. She knew that she couldn't just ask him straight away, it would arouse suspicion in him rather quickly, so she waited for the moment, the moment she didn't know if it would appear but still hoping deep inside that it would.

The weasel grunted, supposable from pain, hit the door with his fist, and mumbled curses she couldn't hear very well. He then reached and changed the frequency of the radio to another one, as he seemed bored as well. He found one he probably liked and leaned into his seat, while playing with his worn out claws and moving his bent whiskers. Her ears moved towards the radio and she started listening with utmost clarity.

"-es but what else can you tell us Fabienne?" asked a male voice that came from the radio.

"From our reliable sources, we found out that the key supporters for the rebels in the east are the countries of Tanami and North Odo. Embargoes and economical sanctions have been put upon those two major supporters and the president declared that… 'There won't be mercy for anyone who decides to fund this act of genocide'. Those are his words but it seems that the actions our government is undertaking aren't doing much because the rebels are starting to take ground and it seems that a ground invasion is inevitable…" Duke changed the channel to one with some random music and reduced the volume, while growling with increased ferocity and making Judy's fur to stand up.

"Fucking pieces of shits," he spat with anger and grabbed his head with both his paws. He looked psychotic to the doe, and she was glad that there was a barrier between them but at the same time, she saw her opportunity as the weasel seemed vulnerable at that very moment, thus she plunged into her dangerous quest and attempt to find out more information.

"Sir, are you okay?" she probed carefully and moved closer, her ears starting to register his erratic breathing, and she could see his body to be slightly shivering.

The weasel quickly turned to look at her, and she could see fear in his red eyes. Why was she seeing fear? "Do I look like I'm okay you stupid bitch?"-he sat up and grabbed the cage with one of his paws while moving his face closer to it-"do you have any idea. ANY IDEA? What this means for me? Fuck no. You don't know SHIT!" he yelled desperately and turned away from her. But he didn't sound terrifying like before. He sounded tensed and horrified as well as scared. It probably had to do something with the news, she took a guess.

Judy couldn't just ask what that meant for him because he wasn't that empty-headed. _It would have been so easy if he was._

So she decided to act upon empathy and try to steer a conversation at another direction, as to make him forget about the news and probably learn something about him, not that she actually was interested but because she needed to know with who she was dealing with even if Nick had told her plenty. So she went with the flow and asked what first came up to her mind, "Sir"-she heard the weasel to scoff in annoyance-"I wanted to ask… why did you became a police officer?" She could see the weasel to relax and heard him to… chuckle? There was some silence and at last, the weasel started speaking.

"I actually can't fucking remember… I have been an officer for 16 years… I think…"-he scratched his ungroomed fur between his ears-"I joined at 24 or 25… bah who fucking cares," he revealed and played with his bent whiskers for a bit and then continued, "It was so fucking shitty when I joined. You think this is bad for you now?" he grumbled and looked at her but without malice but with pity, which surprised her immensely and managed to confuse her terribly.

"Ha! Fuckity-hop, you are in paradise… How many cunts tried to bring me down then… How many fuckers… But wait, you asked why I joined? I think it—no… meh it was sort of… what did you say in that corridor, Flopsy?" he asked with small hints of interest in his voice, and she was quick to answer, not wanting to get him to stop talking or change his mood.

"To make the world a better place. Sir," she blissfully repeated her words from back then.

"Right… I think that was my idea back then as well"-he started snickering-"so fucking idiotic and shittery-fetched," he mocked her moto and started laughing but stopped sharply and groaned from pain. "A-and… Fucking shit…"-he grinded his teeth-"I just started climbing up the ladder but at a certain point they just didn't want to promote me anymore. Those fucking cum stains." She could see that he was becoming uncontrollable again but she didn't care, so she pressed on.

"What happened after that, Sir?" she kept digging with narrowed eyes and ears that were facing the weasel's direction.

"What happened?"-he turned to look at her, and she could see the hatred in his red eyes, which looked like burning hot embers-"You want to know you fucking hick? You want to know so fucking much don't you?"-steps could be heard on her left, which sounded fast and heavy to the doe, thus she started reaching for her carrot pen-"Do you know how satisfying it is when they squeal and beg you not t—" The driver's door flung open and Thane jumped in with incredible speed, grabbing the weasel's collar and starting to shake him violently, and making Judy to jump back from unwanted surprise, hugging the seat with her back, while her nose went crazy as well as her breathing.

"Shut the fuck up you old fool!" shouted Thane dreadfully, and she was stricken with bewilderment because for the first time, for the first time she saw the coyote to lose his temper, and he looked frightened to the bone, with his bushy brown-tipped tail between his legs.

The weasel squirmed in the uncomfortable hold, and started groaning and holding the spot on his ribs. The doe figured that something must have hit him very hard for him to act like that all day. "Why? What's the fucking point"-his ever-present toothpick fell off his mouth and he looked desperate, he looked like he had surrendered-"who gives a shit if this naïve hick hears it? She doesn't understand most of it anyways!" he yelled despondently, and she could see spit flying out of his mouth and hitting the coyote's face but he didn't even flinch, just stared murderously at the weasel without even blinking.

"I don't care what you believe. Behave yourself or you'll get us into trouble again," warned the coyote, and she could feel the same aura of authority around him again. It made her afraid and managed to fire up her instincts, those instincts that were extinguished since she started hanging around Nick. It was a very unsavory experience.

"SO? I'm dead any-fucking way," deadpanned the weasel and Thane developed a surprised look, while Judy's ears tried to get out of the trap she had put them in.

"What are you—you'll tell me later. Shut your mouth. Now!" Thane ordered and turned to look at Judy, who was pushing herself against the seat, with her paw in her pocket, while holding her carrot pen but it seemed that nothing good was said, thus she didn't overwrite the previous recording, a recording she didn't know if she should keep, and she spent a lot of time trying to decide but never managing to do so.

She could see that the coyote was looking at her with disdain and major displeasure, and after a few moments, he let go of Duke but didn't move away his unblinking stare, which was piercing the doe like an arrow, and she could feel her racing heart in her ears.

"If you keep digging, you are going to burry yourself, Hopps," he threatened her, with a low but hoarse voice and turned away. She knew what he meant and that managed to send chills everywhere around her body, getting her to gulp and look at the rear-view mirror, and she managed, for the first time since she entered the car, to spot Thane eyeing her, so she quickly looked away, starting to feel uncomfortable and scared at the same time, while slowly touching her weapons, wanting to know if they were still there, and it seemed that they indeed were, which managed to reassure her that she had a chance.

She almost had the weasel recorded. He had almost told her what he had done but Thane showed up and ruined everything. The coyote caught up to her plan and had reacted quickly. And now… now she was in his sights. The weasel seemed to not give a crap about her but she would've preferred to be the other way around. Now… now, everything was going to be harder and more dangerous. The ice was becoming thinner and deadlier, which was very bad news for her.

 _What did I get myself into…_

The car rumbled to life and started moving. From her observations, as she looked through the window, they were heading towards the southeast part of Savanna Central. They seemed to be close to the docks but she didn't know where exactly they were heading. She contemplated in the meantime upon what the weasel had told her, and for a second, for a second she felt empathy for him, but just for a second, as she remembered his malicious words and how he had mentioned torture.

She knew that he probably wasn't as he is right now, figuring from his re-collection of his past and how he said that it was way worse for him than it is for her now. She couldn't picture anything worse than what she was in but at the same time, anything was possible, and she understood that Duke was molded by the evniroment he was in. For a moment, for a moment he had showed a side she didn't believe existed, just like Nick.

But unlike Nick, the weasel was just too far gone in her opinion, and he needed to be stopped from inflicting more pain upon others. That was the decision she came to and it was going to be final.

Looking through the window again, she could see that they were on a bridge and were heading towards what looked like a medium-sized island, with a very old residential area.

In front of the entrance of the island, there were very tall fences with barbed wire but it seemed that they were very rusty and non-consistent as there were some missing or broken in some spots around the entrance. She could see an old sign which said 'Welcome to Happytown!'. She didn't know much about this area of Zoootopia but it seemed to look very poor and abandoned, judging just from the entrance, and she wasn't about to be proven wrong.

They passed under the old welcoming sign, which wasn't welcoming at all, and Thane kept driving them further in. Judy could see the buildings that were pretty old and very stale with most of the buildings being blocks. They were hugging each other and facing the street on both sides. It was like Savanna Central's residential areas but way more unserviced and abandoned because the trash wasn't inside the trash containers but all around them, and even when there weren't ones in some places, there were piles of rubbish, nevertheless.

The street seemed in a very poor condition with its many holes, dirt, and debris, and she could see that Thane had lowered the speed and was very focused with his driving, which almost made her to snort from amusement of seeing him like that but she was wary, knowing that he may hear or see. There weren't that many citizens outside as well and when she would see some, they were mainly predators of different sizes, which was rather peculiar to her.

They started passing by what must've been a park sometime in the past that didn't have any trees anymore because it seemed that they were cut down, and it was filled with giant weeds, bushes, and junk. The doe could see thick black smoke coming from deep inside the field, which was illegal to do so while in Zootopia and everywhere else in the state as well. But she could see the uninterest in both cops in front of her and just kept quiet, having already gone through her struggle with upholding the law with Nick but that didn't mean that the scowl didn't appear on her part.

They kept going further into the area and surprisingly, it was becoming less sleazy but that didn't mean that it looked alright, just not as bad as the entrance or the so called park. Just as she was about to look out of the window again, she heard a thud and quickly moved her head and ears towards the sound, thus saw the windshield that was now covered in trash and feces, which was instantly accompanied with the squeal of brakes, curses from the coyote, and a very quick exit on his part. She could see him looking at the buildings' tops, seemingly searching for something or someone.

"Fucking punks!" she heard him shout and saw him get into the car, pull a big towel and then to start cleaning the rotten and disgusting trash, which's smell managed to get inside the car and get the doe's eyes to water and paws to cover her wiggling nose. She could see the weasel who was staying still like a statue, like he didn't even care. She took a guess that he had his fair share of hanging around rotten and that's why it wasn't repulsing for him anymore, probably.

It was very odd that this area was so abandoned and everyone seemed to be doing whatever they wanted to. Making fire, stacking trash on the streets, throwing shit on moving cars, and who knows what more she hadn't yet experienced and didn't want to if it was going to be any worse than what she had gone through already.

After Thane was finished with his cleaning, he threw the now-dirty-towel at the sidewalk, entered and started driving.

But after around a minute, he stopped on the street near the sidewalk and turned off the heated engine.

"We are going on foot," he ordered and Judy heard the click on her door, which managed to stir excitement in her because at last, after many hours of sitting inside and doing nothing, she had a chance to actually move around. But just as she exited, she felt stiffness all around her body, thus she began stretching her muscles and tendons that was accompanied by felt several satisfying pops that made her feel much better, but she could still feel dizzy from the lack of movement during the day.

But that didn't matter, she would cope with it as freedom was now bestowed upon her, which actually made her smile. She saw Thane come over to the sidewalk and continue walking down without even stopping to look at her. Duke opened and closed his door after exiting and followed suit very sluggishly, with a bent back and paws in his pockets.

She did so as well but keeping her distance from the weasel because of his last outburst that she didn't want to experience without a physical barrier between them, or she would have to defend herself with any means necessary. The mammals that came from the opposite direction made way for them but she could see their hostile glares as well as hear comments such as 'fucking pigs', 'murderers' and so forth, thus she chose to stop listening, not liking what she was hearing because they were saying those things to her as well.

It seemed that the population here didn't like cops very much but at least the problem for now was only verbal but the strange thing was that neither Thane nor Duke did anything about that. She expected at least Duke to snap but maybe he couldn't hear those comments, not having such good listening devices like hers, probably. But she wasn't about to tell him, not at all. This was the least she wanted to happen and be a witness to as well as a participant.

Both officers stopped at an intersection and looked at the other side of the street. The doe joined them, still keeping a respectable distance between herself and them and fixated at the direction they were looking at, and saw several mammals; old red-bricked small flats; small piles of trash around the gutter; a few parked cars but pretty much nothing else.

There was this odorful smell that wasn't very pleasant with the air itself filled with dampness, dampness that made it heavy and suffocating because of the hot temperatures that were exactly the opposite during nighttime. She could feel uncomfortableness starting to crawl all around her from the conditions she was in, with sweat starting to form underneath her fitting uniform, a uniform she would've gladly taken off if she wasn't on duty.

Her kevlar vest wasn't helping either as it was stifling her skin and fur from breathing more than ever, which made her to reach for the black polyester straps and pull them up and down from uneasiness. She hated the fact the she was given cheap equipment, equipment that could've been easily replaced or modified but she had to endure, there wasn't an option number two.

"So, Flopsy…" she heard the weasel say and turned to look at him, with one ear pointed at his direction, while the other slept on her back. She could see him grinning but something was missing, something her brain was telling her that should've been there. And what was missing, now was not, as he pulled it out of his pocket and put it in its rightful place. "Tell me. What do you see?" he asked somewhat seriously and pointed at the mammals she was looking at a few moments ago.

She narrowed her eyes and examined the individuals as best as she could. There were 3 mammals that were talking with each other, two of whom were lions and the 3rd one being a badger. They didn't seem to have very good clothing, as she could see some tears here and there as well as their fur being ungroomed with many tufts that were clearly visible even from a distance.

But they were just talking and she didn't see anything suspicious on and about them, thus she moved her examining gaze away from them and onto two other mammals who were near an alley. One of them was a big brown bear and the other a black fox. The bear's shirt's upper buttons weren't present and the upper half of that same shirt was widely spread outwards, exposing his thick chest fur. He had black jeans with a massive brown leather belt to which there were a few big bags attached.

He seemed quite bulky to the doe, and as she couldn't see anything else from the distance, therfor she started studying the pure black fox next to him that looked like the devil. The odd thing about him that he was wearing a white shirt with light grey pants. It didn't seem him having anything else on him, at least from this distance, and she tried to search the environment for more clues but those were the only mammals at the area Duke pointed at. There were two old cars but no one was inside them and nothing of interest could be seen, so she turned her gaze towards the weasel, who was looking at her with satisfaction and a shit-eating grin.

"Very sloppy, Slopsy"-he made her a new nickname but she didn't care anymore about that, so she didn't took offence-"you see that fat-fillet-shitting bear?" he asked and she quickly glanced at the brown bear, who was now leaning on the old dusty-red-bricked wall, while still talking to the black fox.

 _Fat? Not even close…_ She mused and then moved her eyes back to the weasel, waiting for his next words.

"He is wanted for theft, arson, and for assaulting a police officer—" the weasel stopped and gloated at the doe with mischief, she could see a hint of taunt in his red eyes. "We could easily take him down but as I remember"-he grinned madly-"you sat all day on your lazy ass and did nothing," he jabbed, and she felt a rush of energy go through her core because it wasn't on her own volition to sit on her butt all day, they had made her do so by not letting her out but she remained calm, for her sake and the weasel's. But mainly for hers.

She glanced over at Thane who was playing with his claws and seemed uniterested in their conversation. "I heard you were top of you class, hickity-hop. So an old fat bear wouldn't be a problem for you, would it now?" he kept probing deeper and surprise flushed through her body, making her excited about his proposition but at the same time reality was suffocating her drive. It was a damn bear, who knows how much she had to multiply her weight to get to his number. He was almost 3 times taller than her and definitely stronger. Without even a bit of doubt.

"Seconds thoughts? I didn't know that rabbits can be pussies as well—" he stopped when she shipped a death stare and almost growled at him because of his challenging tone as well as words, words that were pricking at her honor and ego, an ego that wasn't going to be very beneficial at that very moment. And her nature was just restricting her from not trying to prove herself, something that she did commonly while growing up, something she needed to do in order to persevere and endure, and she wasn't going to back up because of that fact.

She wanted to prove herself. What if the bear was bigger and stronger? She knew how to handle him even if it was going to break regulations, knowing full well that she was going in alone. But that didn't matter, she was going to show this murderer that she wasn't just a token bunny. Maybe if she earned both of their respect by showing them that she could handle herself, they would let her on with more information as well as trust.

That was a possibility but there was the other one the other way around, which meant more attention onto herself. But that wasn't the issue right now. She was challenged and mocked. That was the problem now she needed to solve, so she began crossing the street and headed towards the small group of mammals. "Be rea—, we don't –nt her to –ie on our wa—h s—"she managed to faintly overhear Duke whisper probably to Thane but she was getting further away from them and the rest wasn't even slightly audible.

Getting over the other side, she neared the group of three mammals, who after seeing her started laughing hysterically for an unknown reason, and that made her to take a look at herself but didn't spot anything out of place, so she blocked them off and kept walking towards the two mammals near the alley.

Arriving at her destination but definitely not being noticed, she positioned herself between the big bear and charcoal fox that seemed to be her size, while keeping a respectable distance. She examined them again because now she could see details. The black fox's eyes were sky-blue and his left ear had a medium-sized hole, probably from a gunshot wound and he had very long white whiskers, which was peculiar.

She could see the bear's chest fur that was exposed because of his torn off top of the shirt that he was wearing but it didn't have the vibrant brown color his face had. It seemed that it was losing its color and turning white, and she figured that the bear really was old as the weasel had said. She looked at his big bags around his wide waist and could see that there was something in them, something that was poking the sides of those same bags but she couldn't recognize the form and couldn't see inside as they were closed.

She huffed quietly but that managed to attract the attention of the black fox, who stopped listening to the black bear that was talking about a relative in Tundratown, and looked at Judy with a scowl, which shortly after turned into a smirk. "Nice costume," shot the the black vulpine, which got the bear to stop talking and inspect the grey doe with a raised bushy eyebrow. She was taken aback by the words, but hey, she hadn't heard them for the first time, thus the shock was quickly drained from her system.

With a professional stance and voice, she began, "It's not a costume. I'm an officer of the ZPD and m—"

She was interrupted by the bear's friendly and deep voice, "Has the circus arrived in town, little bunny?"-he didn't have any malice or sarcasm in his voice, his question actually sounded serious-" Oh… I used to be a performer back in my days, little bunny. Those were the times…" the bear trailed off and zoned out, while the fox was snickering and had put one paw over his black muzzle.

"I am not a performer," she contradicted strongly and glared at both mammals but the bear was still high up in the clouds, while the fox was gloating at her devilishly.

"And I am not a fox," he returned, started laughing, and she could see that she was losing her authority, as both mammals weren't taking her seriously, and she knew that if she lost her authority, then brute force was going to be needed. It seemed that indeed she had to resort to that, and she had had enough, thus pulling out her taser from her holster, aiming it at the bear, while looking at the black fox who took a step back but didn't start running and only raised his eyebrows while looking around frantically.

"Sir, I want you to step back and get on the ground," she shouted soundly and could see the fox to take a defensive stance and the bear to come back to Earth. But the brown giant didn't seem to be scared or moved by the small taser and just chuckled. Judy was starting to feel the adrenaline, which was coursing through her whole body as well as her heart that was beating crazily.

She didn't have a partner to cover her back, and she was against two mammals, one very big and one that had almost the same agility as her. The bear didn't seem to believe her that he was being arrested, and she was feeling very rushed by any movement from the two mammals, which got her finger to twitch against the trigger of the weapon in her paws, and eyes to move from mammal to mammal every second.

"What's that?" asked the bear with curiosity and took a step closer to the doe, making her to take one back. That managed to show her fear in her unconfident retreat, which made the fox to snort gloatingly. "That looks very real, little rabbit. Where you find it?" the bear persistently persisted, and she could see that the fox was starting to move out of her field of view, therefor she needed to control the situation fast or she would get into trouble.

"Last warning, sir! Step back. Now!" she yelled boldly but the bear only did the opposite and started reaching towards her with his big paw and long claws. She couldn't take the stress anymore and aimed at his exposed furry chest, feeling sweat all around her body, and her heat being intolerable as well as her fear. She didn't want to hurt the mammal but this was the only thing she could do right now, wrestling with the big individual being completely out of the question. She readied herself to draw her tranquilizer for the fox after downing the brown bear, and she could hear him scraping the ground with his claws on his feet but still being at a considerable distance, which was good for her, for now.

"Come now. Give it to me, little rabbit"-he just kept coming closer, being now just a meter away from her-"befor—" A zap was heard as well the sound of electricity and smell of burnt fur. She had hit her mark and the probes of the taser were now in the chest-skin of the big brown bear, who roared in pain and stumbled back, hitting the brick wall with his back very harshly.

She quickly, with one paw, reached for her tranquilizer, while still holding the taser and sending painful impulses towards the big mammal, who seemed to not be going down, and aimed it at the fox who charged at her but stopped when he saw her holding her tranquilizer pistol. But he wasn't stepping back, just looking at her with disgust, exposed teeth and claws, while his growls were sending chills down the doe's spine and getting her to feel tightness in her lungs.

Judy saw the bear hit his head at the wall from the pain but he wasn't going down, and he visibly still had control over his body, which managed to get the doe's heart to beat even faster from fear and uncertainty. She could see him looking at the other side of the street and then he became slack-jawed, visibly the electricity not affecting him as it was.

The doe noticed primal fear in him as well as his paws reaching for the cables that were connected to the probes in his skin and he just pulled them out like they were nothing, getting her to jump back and aim the tranquilizer at the bear who stumbled because of his shocked state, while the fox remained vigilant but didn't press on.

"GET ON THE GROUND!" she yelled, but without any of that aura of boldness she previously had, but the bear didn't care for her being there anymore and began stumbling backwards with wobbly steps and strange gait.

"They… RUN… they are HERE!" yelled the bear desperately and sent the black fox a very panicked glance that made the vulpine to tuck his tail between his legs and run for his life. The bear started attempting to run away from the grey doe as well but with very slow steps, as he probably still didn't have his full body functions as well as energy. Judy wasn't going to let him get away and immediately shot an arrow her tranquilizer, hitting the bear at the back of the neck thus getting him to groan and pull the needle out quickly.

She didn't have to worry about the fox no more because the mammal was nowhere in sight, therefor the fear inside began diminishing, and she knew that now the dices were on her side. But she wasn't out of deep waters yet, the bear was still standing on his legs and she holstered her taser into her strap, not having time to recharge as the mammal on the run could escape her.

The doe began chasing after him, entered the darker alley, and started reloading her small weapon with another needle, while cursing inwardly for being issued a single-shot tranquilizer. She managed to gain on the brown bear, who seemed to be losing his energy very visibly, the tranquilizer beginning to kick in but not enough to get him to collapse.

She fired another one at him and managed to hit his lower back, the arrow being sharp enough to go through his shirt, and getting him to groan loudly, hit some metal trash bins in the process, and she knew that it was a matter of time until he fell, but what she didn't expect was for him to stop, grab a metal trash bin and hurl it at her direction with a lot of force, which would've almost hit her if she handn't dashed to the side.

The bear's fear was turned into boiling anger now, and she could see saliva falling off his mouth, probably because he was losing control over most of his body, and she could predict that he was going to charge her any second now, as well as that she didn't have any time to reload another needle, so she quickly holstered her weapon and readied herself for the inevitable.

The bear grabbed a big brick and threw it at her with all his might but she dodged it easily as his aim was very bad due to the toxins inside his system, which were starting to get him sleepy. He roared fiercely, charged at her, and she knew that this was a life and death situation, seeing the burning hatred inside the bear's eyes. She had little room to maneuver but had been trained well and knew what to do.

The bear was extremely close to her and swiped with his claws but missed, and she used that as an opportunity, jumping between his legs and hitting him with her shin in the tendons behind his knee, getting him to roar in pain and fall on his knees heavily, as the tranquilizer and the brutal kick had made it impossible for him to keep his stability. The hit appeared to have done its job and it seemed that she had managed to do so without injuring herself, which was great news but the fight wasn't over yet.

Judy saw that as an opportunity to reload and started doing so, but during the process, she made the mistake and stopped looking at the perp for a second, a second that was all the bear needed, and after which she felt something blunt and hard hit her paw, getting her to cry out in sharp pain and drop her weapon to the ground.

Her ears detected movement in front of her, she quickly moved her sight away from her injured pawn, and saw the bear charging at her again, but this time, this time she was taken by surprise and his swipe was just centimeters away from her widely-opened eyes, yet she managed to get out of the way and circled around the half-conscious bear that stumbled forward and supported his arms on his knees, while breathing sporadically and heavily.

He seemed drained and she knew what would bring him down, so she sprinted towards the wall on his right, distracting the bear with her move and jumped at it, using it as support to fire herself as a projectile at the brown giant, who didn't expect her to do that, and she managed, with her tough legs, to strike his kneecap with incredible speed and force, thus making the bear to at last lose all strength and fall flat on the ground, with a loud crash, which managed to blow a lot of dust around the alley, dust that managed to invade her nostrils and make her cough.

But this time, this time he didn't get up nor tried to move at all.

She took that as an opportunity to cuff him before he would start moving again, knowing full well that she wouldn't be able to hold his meaty paws if he resisted. She got her cuffs off her belt, cuffs that were made for mammals of all sizes and jumped on top of the bear's back, pulled both his paws, with some uffs and huffs, close to each other and snapped both cuffs to his wrists very quickly and professionally.

Judy quickly searched for her tranquilizer and after finding it, reloaded it quickly, as she didn't want any more surprises or fights with the giant mammal. She went up to him and checked if he was alright and it seemed that he was breathing and still was holding himself awake but without much energy present in his half-closed eyes.

"Do—Don't…" The doe went closer to him because he was trying to tell her something. She knew that she had to tell him his rights but that could wait. "D-d-don't kill m-m-me… pleaseeee…" he begged and her eyes became wide in surprise. She couldn't believe that the bear thought that she would kill him.

"Sir, I am not here to hurt you. Just don't resist, comply and everything will be alright," she reassured but saw the doubt in the bear's face which was still flat on the filthy ground. She was just going to radio it in when she heard Weaselton from the way they entered the alley.

"The little hippity-hop brings down the fucking fat bear. I couldn't believe my shitty eyes"-the weasel widely opened both his arms-"good fucking job forgetting to increase the charge on your taser, country girl," mocked the weasel who was now next to her, while grinning madly, and he patted her on the shoulder but she didn't even flinch, just stared at him with dissatisfaction as indeed she had forgotten to increase the charge, therefor she had to resort to chasing.

She saw Thane to pass by shortly after, and he was looking at her somehow… with interest? But he quickly moved his gaze away from her and onto the fallen giant. She wanted to retort to Duke's comments but felt stinging pain in her right paw from the hit she had received and just rubbed it lightly, while attempting to control her breathing from the quick expense of energy.

The weasel went to the bear's head and she could hear whimpers from the giant's side as well as his visible attempts to crawl away from the scruffy weasel, which was something rather strange. "You think we forgot about you M—"

She didn't hear the rest as Thane got in her view and began, "Hopps, go bring the car here so we can take him in," he ordered and threw her the keys, which she almost missed to catch as the pain in her paw was a tad bad, the swelling spot pulsing with her every beat of her healthy heart.

"Yes, Sergeant," she replied and tried walking away but something managed to stop her, something that made her heart to stop beating entirely, something that she dreaded and feared that could happen.

The only thing she wanted now was the day to be over and she to be in her comfortable bed, a bed that wasn't actually comfortable as it was very sturdy, and after having slept in it for the first time, she felt as if she had slept on the ground, but now, now there was nothing else she wanted more than that.

But the bed could wait as what she was hearing were the sounds of a beating, a beating which made her to turn around and see something horrifying. Duke was stomping the bear's head as well as kicking him ferociously, making the poor cuffed mammal to whimper and cry out in pain, cries that were piercing her ears and making her eyes to sting.

"You think you can run away from US?" the weasel shouted with hate and kicked even harder. The sound of bone meeting bone being very audible and making the doe to grimace in disgust, and she actually felt hesitation on her part, hesitation that was coming from Nick's warnings and pleas. She could just turn a blind eye and walk away, like nothing had happened. Then, then she wouldn't have any problems at all and she could continue as she was.

She grabbed the spot where her bruise was on her paw, a bruise that was made from the same bear that was on the ground. Maybe he did deserve that, maybe this was justifiable? She began squeezing that same bruise very hard, making excruciating pain jolt through her whole body.

No. She couldn't turn a blind eye, not to this, never to this. How could she even let herself to think like that, it was disgusting, it was repulsing, it was sickening. She didn't care what would happen anymore after what she was about to do, her sense of justice eating away the corrupted thoughts that were trying to control her, to make her like them, to destroy who she was.

That made her angry, angry like never before, and she felt a wave of energy to go through her whole body, making her feel incredible power and she was going to fume all that into the mammal she hated with all her might. Weaselton. She dropped the keys to the ground with a clink and sprinted towards the weasel who was beating relentlessly the detained mammal, who seemed to be losing consciousness because of that and not the toxins that were inside his system.

She was like a grey bullet and Duke had no idea what was coming for him at all, thus he leaned towards the bear's head, which was shortly after met with hard bone against his snout and throat. She hit him with her shin so hard, that she actually felt searing pain inside her bone as well as a loud crunching sound. That made the weasel to go flying back and fall on his back while grinding the dirty concrete ground with his not so clean-anymore uniform.

The doe agilely went over to the semi-conscious weasel, the adrenaline managing to suppress the pain that was going to bite her soon, and rolled him over, quickly grabbing his cuffs and putting them on both his wrists without any complications because the weasel didn't even try to resist, his state of shock and probably dazed brain not giving the opportunity to do so. She could hear his hard groans as well as the pulsing pain in her left shin that she was trying suppress but failing to do so anymore.

She moved back and glared at the pathetic weasel, who had tried again to do as he pleased in front of her, with satisfaction that she had given justice in the form of a teeth-breaking kick. She had made herself a promise and she wasn't going to let him continue his self-will. But she thought that something was amiss, that she had forgotten about something, something important.

Judy heard steps towards her and quickly turned her head but all she saw was a blur, and she felt a hard shove on her side, which made her to fall on the ground flat on her face, hitting her cheek in the process. She tried to quickly stand up but firm pressure was put on her back and her paws were grabbed, so she lost the ability to move, only her legs being somewhat free but the pressure was too much for her to get them angled and hit the mammal that was holding her down.

Who had she forgotten about, her adrenaline and shock were making her memory clouded and she just couldn't remember, until she felt cold steel on her wrists and then tightness.

Judy couldn't breathe very well as there was too much dust on the cold ground that was now freely entering her nostrils and making her cough even harder than before but it didn't last long, as she felt someone pull her up and set her to sit against the dirty red-brick wall, and she at last saw who it was.

Thane. _No, how could I have…_ He was so good at making himself invisible that she had forgotten about him. Fear gripped her body and her nose started wiggling, her amethyst eyes began moving around frantically, searching for an exit but what was the point. She was cuffed and there was no escape anymore. The tightness on her wrist was hurting her because of the bruise but she gritted her teeth and tried to search for an escape, nevertheless.

The doe saw the coyote to go to Duke, remove the cuffs from him and help him up. She tried to get up as well but saw the hostile glare from Thane and slumped back into her position of shame. Were they going to kill her? Were they going to beat her up? No, they couldn't as the Chief knew that she was with them, yet the doubt was present and she saw the weasel, who was holding his ankles and breathing heavily, her kick having managed to get his brain to smack against the inside of his skull and greatly injure him. It was actually him of whom she was afraid of. She wasn't armed anymore, she was cuffed, and she remembered what he had done to the bear who was now visibly and undeniably unconscious.

Judy saw the weasel to look at her with hatred that burned like the sun, hatred that sent sharp needles with fear throughout her nerves, getting her to shake violently, squirm in her position, and groan from agony. She could see his intention of beating her up, as he reached for his steel expandable baton and began walking towards her, while having trouble doing so in a straight line because of the dizziness and pain she had caused upon his temple.

She wanted to yell, she wanted to scream, she wanted to run… but what was the point? She was in a dark alley, in a very bad area of Zootopia, with two corrupt cops of whom one was a cold-blooded murderer, who liked to hear his victims to squeal. No, she wasn't going to surrender, she wasn't going to die without a fight, so she stood up and took a battle stance with her cuffed paws behind her back but it wasn't an easy feat to do, as with every heartbeat, she could feel the scorching pain in her leg.

"I'm g-gonna f-f-fuck"-he began convulsing in pain but regained control of himself, surprisingly-"… y-you up," he spat hoarsely with incredible strain, while holding his neck with his free paw and coughing anguishedly and tightly as well. He got close to her and swung his baton at her but missed, as she dashed to her left and dodged his strike but by doing that, the pain in her shin got her to cry out in agony and fall instantaniously to the ground on her knees and almost on her already bruised face.

She quickly tried to stand up, and while attempting to do so, she glanced in front of her but that was accompanied by a brutally-piercing sharp pain on her cheek that she had fallen on as well, when Thane had pushed her to the ground and cuffed her. The hit managed to send her rocking back towards the old wall that she was leaning against a few moments ago but she didn't hit it by some chance and fell just before it.

Then she felt her brain start pulsing hard and feverish, her eyesight to lose its focus and loud ringing started resonating in both her drooped ears. The pain was excruciating and she began whimpering from it, not feeling well at all, and she just couldn't find any more energy within herself, yet she attempted to stand up again but was met by the force of a foot as well as words she couldn't understand, therefor she tried to get ready for another blow that would probably send more dreaded pain through her body, thus she closed her moist amethyst eyes and curled herself, as best she could, into a ball and waited for the inevitable, for the inescapable, for the unavoidable.

But nothing happened, nothing struck her, nothing increased her torment, the only thing she could sense was the throbbing inside her head, her shin, wrist, and cheek. But because nothing else happened, she slowly and painfully opened her terrified moist eyes that were filled with tears from the searing pain, while her brain pounded inside her skull.

She could blurrily see Thane shaking Weaselton cruelly by the scruff of his neck and probably yelling something at him, but she couldn't tell, the ringing only intensifying and making her deaf for the moment. She felt sleepy and just wanted the misery to go away, so she finally accepted defeat and closed her eyes, falling into slumber with the great pain finally going away, thus she slowly plopped onto the cold and dirty concrete.

She didn't know if she was going to wake up and what was going to happen next but she didn't care, she had done whatever she could, she hadn't stood idle and turned a blind eye. That's what gave her the ability to accept her fate, that's what got her heart to stop squeezing painfully inside of her. She knew what would've happened, she was warned many times. But the choice was made.

She had tried…

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

\- Olives, I hate olives.

 **Social Links:**

\- **Twitter:** _InletReal_

\- **Tumblr:** _inlet-oc_

\- **Youtube:** _Inlet_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_

\- **MisterSmail's AO3 Page:** _Mister_Smail_

\- **MisterSmail's FanFiction Page:** _Mister Smail_


	12. Badge?

**Badge?**

* * *

 _Disappointment, even a small mote of it could carry the avalanche of sorrowful surrender as its capabilities unchecked are harder than those of cast steel. The more you leave something roaming free, the lesser the chance of stopping it or having the ability of apprehending that said object of freelancing chaos. Of course disappointment could come and go but when it just stays and stays and stays, it is unlikely to be fixed just by waiting time to do its course because then time would only cultivate that said thorn instead of calling forth decay like nature's usual code of life._

 _That was what Judy was going through as she stomped through a grass field which was being illuminated by the weak flashlight in her two paws, while she sniffled with a very deep scowl around her face, something that resembled anger and agony at the same time, yet she looked incredibly hurt and that she was. Her day was supposed to be like every day, wake up, go to school, learn something new, scuffle with bullies and go home. But exactly that normality was broken by a sudden sharp change that she had to go through in the form of those, who were trying to get her down, finally managing to get to her, as even when she knew not to listen to them, she just couldn't block it all off, it was tiring, it was very hard, it was bogly suffocating._

 _Because she was running on autopilot, while her flashlight flickered due to the batteries not being to take it anymore, she lost sight of her path and shortly after stumbled her foot in a hole that made her disbalanced body to fall hard on her face, which grinded against the freshly-cut grass that served as a coloring pillow, as now the white around her muzzle had its texture and the pink shirt that had a carrot in the middle now had undergo severe changes. The crickets around the impact scurried away and continued their songs of love elsewhere, while she just lay there and sobbed through choked breaths. Why did she have to go through all this? Couldn't they just leave her alone! She wasn't hurting anybody… she wanted to help everybody…_

 _It was that blasted fox Gideon, who just had put her in his sights after she stood up at him after that school play. It was as if he wanted to prove her his point, a point that she believed to be immature and dumb, until she finally began feeling the effects of everything that had been slowly draining her from day one. It looked as if he was going to be right, as well as her parents, even some of her friends would try and persuade her. Why were they so determined to prove her that society was right? Wasn't that hypocritical? Wasn't that… evil?!_

 _The smell of plants, the smell of green was flaring her nostrils with the mingle of dirt. Her paw gripped a small patch of grass and squeezed it so hard that it ripped from the soil after which she pushed herself up and sat, her white whiskers with tints of discolor twitching, while her head moved around the blackness of the night in search for the place she felt safe and at peace. But her flashlight had fallen in front of her and was blinding her little moist lilacs which she squinted, as she crept slowly at the small piece of vision. She had to move because the more she stood there, with light bouncing around, the bigger the chance of getting caught being outside her home at an hour forbidden of doing so by her family. She was far away from home but most mammals knew each other here and she didn't want to take the chance, especially at her current vestibular hollowness._

 _The flashlight was snatched and she hurried towards the hill, while passing quite some stacked bales with some sort of bleak tarpaulins which were definitely to protect them from potential rain of doom. She was always told that outside at night was the most dangerous time, that it wasn't when one would go around if they weren't searching for trouble, but how could she believe such when she was told that speciesm was alright? How could she have faith in anything that was supposed to be for her own benefit, for her own protection, when all that she was being shown were contradictions on top of more depressing contradictions. Why should she listen?_

 _And all was proven right as she felt best during the night because nobody could nag her about anything or confront her about her dreams and motives. She was free to be with herself, in the wild, like in ancient times. A seclusion from society that didn't want her to be something more than a carrot-farming bunny. Yes, she liked the seclusion but always sought a balance. She knew that such swings of moods were bound to happen and that they were mostly dormant, yet this time, this time was like no other. It was the worst she had ever experienced as her young body just felt weak and her mind was like a mess of mangled cables, trying to make the link but failing somewhere along the complicated path of supposed righteousness._

 _She got to the base of the hill and that was where the short and soothing grass became long and hostile because whoever owned that acre of property didn't care less to fend after it. There were thorns and bushes overgrown, tripping roots and angry stones of different sizes, while the possibility of snakes was pretty chancy, let alone big and hungry owls with sharp eyes and dangerous beaks. Her small eyes couldn't find the path she'd usually trek because the small moon in her paw was too anemic and it was only capable to show her where to step right in front of her. The anxiety and impatience to feel at ease got her stomach to twist and whimpers to accompany it all, as she felt dreadfully scared and rather lost._

 _The end goal was visible up there, not that far away but the way to it was obscured and since she was greatly pressured from inside, she just dashed into the thick weeds and tall plants, as she just craved to get there, to make it all stop. The stems brushed against her clothes and fur, the leaves beat against her face and neck, some were managing to get through her soft fur and rustle against her pinkish skin, which instantly would get irritated in a very unhospitable way. Every step was hard and disorienting as well as fearful due to her not seeing where she was stepping, which could earn her a venomous bite that could be the end of her story._

 _The end of the story of the delusional bunny._

 _Her jaw clamped hard as she moved around a bundle of rock that was a possible home for creatures unwanted but that led her blindly into a rosehip bush which instantly grabbed onto her greedily with its thorny ends that were like a large pointy maw of brown teeth and imaginary saliva of dryness. It even managed cut her cheek from the force she went into it. The flashlight fell from her paws and she quickly tried removing the solid and old twigs of the dangerous plant but her fur got entangled as well and pain sizzled around the areas where the pointy ends went against her flesh. Her heart pulsated relentlessly as she couldn't see anything but her dirty feet where flickering carried on undisturbed by her troubles._

 _This time the whimpers weren't from emotional pain but the real and even bloody as the silver fur on her muzzle had streaked a small amount of warmth where her scars of courage lay, while the scent of metal was getting her whiskers to flicker even more. She twisted herself and pulled but that got one of her medium ears to flop into a branch and get her even in a worse of a position. The panic was great, it was pumping her up with irrationality and the only thoughts that flew around her head were those of just getting up on the hill, no matter what. But she didn't want to feel pain, she had had enough for the day, it had been enough!_

 _But her ire wasn't doing her any good, she was feeling helpless and weak, the fear was acting like a titanium chain around her decisions, she couldn't make herself act against it as she had failed to do so during the day, due to it having had full access to her because of her lack of faith in herself. Hyperventilating, tears got out her eyes, tears of pain and emotional luggage, she tried to sit but the thorns pulled on her fur and got her to moan desperately. This wasn't going to work, she couldn't see anything and all the senses she had were of being stuck and immobile, yet she couldn't get herself to act even so… she couldn't._

 _But she had to, she needed to, the summit was right there, she had seen it with her own teary eyes. All she had to do was muster her remaining courage, even if it was almost gone from her, even if she had become hollow and messy and bitter. With a loud intake of air that she couldn't hold as her lungs just wanted more and more, she yanked herself hard and screamed in penetrating torment around the spots of capture, one of them being the most sensitive areas of them all, her ear. She fell on the ground that was uneven and hard and her paws instantly reached for the inside of her ear that was pumping out red that streamed down and soiled the fur around it and on her silver paws. Her teeth were grit and she rolled around in anguish and sobs and hisses, with skin itching hard from the hostile plants that were all mockingly looking down on her misery._

 _The shock slowly crept away and her motions ceased to be as she curled herself in a ball and just shivered in trepidation from everything. She wasn't capable of getting safely to a place she knew well… And she wanted to become a mammal who was supposed to protect others from harm when she couldn't protect her own self from it, when she was vulnerable to the world around her… yet she wanted to shield others from it? She was being false, a hypocrite, a dumb bunny! Maybe she should just lay here and stay until she couldn't, maybe surrendering to the world was the best thing to do, accepting what everyone was saying and moving on. What was the point of trying to be more than what nature had ordered it to be? She had bitten more than she could chew… look where it gotten her… look at what she had turned herself into…_

 _What was the point, who was she trying to impress? Herself? She had already done so in the length of dumbness trailed, so much hurt and time wasted into thinking and learning… At least that way she'd make everyone happy that she had failed, that she had yielded to the majority, proven the point that a bunny can be nothing more, nothing less. But she didn't want that to be true, it didn't have to be! But the pulsing pain and burning skin was telling her otherwise, it was mocking her abilities and choices, it was as if it were one of the bullies of decisions, the constrictor and wall to the future. It wasn't letting her go further just like they had, just like society. Maybe she should just go back, go home and accept it all, accept the reality and truth even if gulping it down would tear everything she had believed in being…_

 _Yea, that sounded nice, it sounded sweet… it appeared reasonable… Why had she been so blind… so stubborn… so… naive?_

 _Her shivers stopped and she slowly rose from the coldening soil riddled with pebbles and tiny insects disturbed by her body. She dusted herself off and felt part of her shirt to limp forward, exposing half of her chest and a part of her belly, while her shorts had tears on quite some spots. She tried to piece together the ruined pink cloth, with tints of green, but it wasn't going to work, which got her to sigh sadly with a quiver and to slowly reach for her still blinking mote of light that lay underneath the bush that had told her the truth, had given her a greater picture._

 _But when she managed to get it and turn around, the late-spring wind gently blew across her slightly bloodied face and the sight before her took her breath and will. The sky was aching deep blue with a shiny-white waxing crescent moon that had recently lost its pita in an unasked decision. The unreachable by paw ceiling glowed and sparkled endlessly, bathing her world in wonder and awe. It was not a view unseen but a view enthralling, nevertheless. It got her to gawk childishly and just stay still, occasionally scratching herself where the plants had assaulted her body from her invasion of their personal space._

 _Always so beautiful, always so peaceful and endless. Unconstricted by anything or anyone. Firm yet gentle. All of that above, looking down and watching over the fields of green and yellow, over the hills of trees and rocks, over the villages that glowed like distant bulbs, over the cities filled with prey and predators living in peace, over the planet Earth where she was chosen to be. It got her muzzle to point down and her mind to rethink her choice made in the hustle of pain and fear, she had allowed herself weakness to tell her what to do but the world around her managed yet again to stop her from taking an irreversible turn that would've dictated her uncertain future._

 _With a gulp still heaved of anxiety, she hugged herself in needed reassurance and decided to finish what was started, to at least be true to herself and climb up the hostile hill which she believed to be the shoulder she could rely on. The light managed to show her another shrubbery next to the one that had captured her and this one wasn't hostile and dangerous, thus steadily she pushed through its green twigs and obscuring leaves,_ _until she managed to go through and step not on grass but dry dirt, to a very extensive surprise._

 _And there it was, a mark on a rock nearby, a mark she had done in the past. It was the path she had been looking for! It had been behind the thorny piece of wall all along and she had thought about quitting, when it was just within reach, within grasp and touch? How could've she been so short-sighted by wanting to quit so effortlessly? How could she have thought that the easy way was the right way? But then again, maybe it was… maybe it really was… The weight in her belly came back and she remembered what she had to do, thus with a readjustment of her ruined pink shirt, she carried on up to her destination where she hoped to find solace and an end to her torment._

 _It wasn't so hard anymore but her dying mote of hope was flickering even harder until it just stopped and she was left stranded and bug-eyed in the abyss of the night. She cursed herself for not bringing spare batteries or at least changing the ones already inside, yet her mind wasn't in the right place today. She wanted to be angry but again nothing came out but frail whimpers and rapid eye movements all around as to see anything but the blackness around her path. Why wasn't the moon full today? If it had been, her path would've been true, yet it wasn't and the stars weren't enough to guide her future. If only she wasn't a bunny and had nocturnal eyes. If only she wasn't a bunny, she wouldn't have had to climb through so much anguish and… rubbish…_

 _With her small, stained with her own red, paws huddled to her quickly-pacing chest she tried to think of something that would save her again, but with nothing coming to mind, while heading back was now even impossible, she shivered hard in horror of the direness she had put herself in. Maybe she could feel her way up like an eyeless mammal? That could work and as she tried one last time to get the electricity deficient tool to work by hitting it a few times, she began moving on all fours on the grassless trail of dirt and rocks and dust. The uncomfortableness was very hard, she felt like an animal in a different world where she was totally defenseless and meek, which was hurting more than the small wounds around her body that throbbed and burned._

 _Her eyes were widely opened and she glanced towards the top where the contrast between the hill and ocean of sky was visible, she was near and every crawl taken by paw and foot was bringing her closer to the end of the journey, it was keeping the hope from finally extinguishing fully. Her muscles carried her and carried until her red paws turned brown and her fur became mated in the several places where small amounts of sweat could go through. Her ears were high up and she was panting from the excessive heat and even if her body was screaming at her to stop, her mind had overridden the instinctive code and had placed itself in control._

 _She had to reach the top._

 _The dirt and roots became short grass and the roughness ceased as the rocks became less and less. She could feel that she was coming closer, the only thing being seen being the distant yellow of villages and solitary houses as well as the inkish sky above. She had to reach, she had to prove everyone that she wasn't a failure, she had to do that for herself! And then came the view of a wide crown basked in shadows, one which's top shined subtly under the weak dark light. Her despair was forced away for a moment by a small smile and she dashed with all her last reserves towards the big and ancient lord of the hill._

 _But the expense resulted in her tripping on the even and silky grass and rolling like an unguided missile until she stopped and breathed in vibrant zeal of accomplishment. The colder air howled above her in a comfortable cooling moment which she cherished very dearly. Her vision was again aimed at the cap, at the top of the world but this time half of it was hidden by thick boughs and branches and big leaves of that same tree she was looking for since her departure. But that could wait, she wanted to cherish the moments after an extensive exercise, the moments when your body would finally be rid of the tension and would start to recuperate slowly, thus resulting in euphoria that no drug could ever give, not that she had ever tried any drugs, but she trusted her gut feeling about it._

 _The melting effect seized to be and the earth began slowly draining her back of warmth, with the sounds of wildlife roaming free, to which she knew that her legs had to carry her to the box of metal with seats. There had to be batteries and light inside. Slowly she trailed towards the wide tree's trunk and when her paws felt the coarse bark of the old giant, she slowly tip-toed until her knees bumped into something cold and lifeless, while her eyes tried to open even wider but to no effect, she just was almost blind. Touching rapidly the cold metal, she moved close to it until she felt a familiar spot, spot that she pulled with a click and the unoiled creaks of the door moved in strain and rattle._

 _After that everything went fast as she remembered the inside like the palm of her paws. The leafy seats lightly crunched under her light weight and the glove compartment opened with yet another horrible pitched moan, yet nothing horrible came out of it but vision for the smiling Judith as she had found the flashlight that now exposed the insides of what appeared to be a Lada Riva, which's front window was laying shattered and wrinkled on the dashboard, with a barely-hanging rear mirror, and the whole engine compartment was overgrown with the slightly bent oaken giant that had eaten almost the whole front of the old vehicle. It looked as if the car had crashed in it a long time ago because the metal was rumpled and uneven, the hood bent in two and standing at an angle up._

 _But Judy wasn't interested in the sight, she had seen it a tad too many times and what she was interested in more was the tin can of carrots hidden under the rugged seat that felt heavenly on her small and aching butt. As she found the can, amidst the small plants on the floor, while rolling off some others which sounded empty, she pulled it out and licked her desert-dry lips which yelled thirst and hunger at the same time, a combination disliked by anyone who lived on the same Earth. The beam of future was put on the dashboard at an angle so that it wouldn't blind her, while showing her the can, and her paw shot for the glove compartment from where she took a pointy and sharp knife, a knife that instantly pierced the top of the object of heaven and sneaked around in a circle._

 _The top plopped open outwards and she juiced down the water that had the rich taste of carrots and life, to which she almost choked from greediness and need, some of the juice trailing down her mouth and onto her ruined pinkish-green, which's carrot itself could be faintly recognized because of the sorry state of her cloth. She released a low burp of excitement and threw the knife back, as she took her leave outside with the tiny sun and food in paw. The door was closed with a thud which rattled the remaining windows hard but not enough to break them, while she went through the outside of the tire-blown and rusted car, which had grass on top its roof where generations of leaves had degenerated into a blanket, while childish drawings of crayons were around its frame that in the past housed the beautiful color of shiny red._

 _But her mission was achieved when she spotted the fully opened trunk where two seats were situated firmly inside. She bounced agilely towards them and without even looking around jumped into the leafy pillow that the seats were accommodating. The two leathery seats with cushioned butts and backs were tied together and had formed a decent sofa in the space of the old trunk itself. Judy gaily removed the leaves from her spot of rest and reached on the side where a crevice lay from where a blanket for warmth came out like a magic trick out of a hat._

 _The tin can she put on her side and with the flashlight in paws she fixed the blanket over and readjusted herself until her butt didn't feel discomfort. Her eyes stared at the flashlight's button for a few moments and she shut it down at last with a very short giggle of great relief. Darkness fell all around her and blinded her yet again but now she wasn't scared, she wasn't in pain, she wasn't anxious. The crown overhead was casting a big sack of darkness and the edge where it ended was where the stars reached._

 _She was feeling safe._

 _Her paw grabbed the can and it was put over the blanket in between her legs, while a carrot entered her mouth and her dull teeth began munching onto the poor vegetable, while her weak eyes, her weak eyes gazed upon the land below that could be seen from the trunk. But this time it was way more than before, from this side she could gaze upon one of the big cities of Bunnyburrow which was shining bright with its many houses and buildings and streets. There were trains that could be faintly seen moving far with mountains being recognized all around in the clear night of dark._

 _Another carrot flew in her mouth that smiled in advance. She was looking at the mountain range behind where one of the biggest cities in Mammalia slept, the one she wanted to go to after she grew up, the one she had read much about and still knew that there was way more. She'd always try to see it from here, day in or day out, but it was just too far away, around 339 kilometers far, which was a lot. Yet that never stopped her from trying of glimpsing one of its tall scrapers, one of its magnificent walls but all that could be discovered were distant planes high in the sky that no bird would dare to fly, blinking red in a mocking way as if to show their superiority away._

 _The city of city of Zootopia._

 _A city of spires, a city of gleam,_

 _A city of power and prosperity,_

 _A city of boundless possibilities,_

 _A city where anyone can be anything._

 _A very low chirp throttled out her lips as she melted into the seat of warmth and put the almost devoured food away from her. Her worries were forgotten, her bubble of delusion was up and the confines of her safety were working wonders on her mind, she would just close her eyes and enter the world of magic and limitless freedom. One day, she'd go there and be who she wanted to be or even something else. Maybe she was in the wrong place all along… She just had to close her eyes… Just… close… her… eyes…_

 _"Jules!" Her eyes shot open, her heart squeezed itself into a black hole and she panicked around furiously and noisily. But what was she looking for… she couldn't see! "Jules, that you?!" came the shushed voice from above to which she grabbed her light and shone it directly at the tree's boughs where she saw a very familiar badger who was holding a paw over his diamond-like face. "Cut it out!" he complained noisily, his voice sounding deeper than usual, while her whiskers flicked harmoniously in joy of seeing him of all mammals._

 _"Sam!" she shouted happily and moved the light away from his nocturnally-red eyes. "Where've you been all this week? I was worried sick!"_

 _"Ughhh… nowhere exciting… come and I'll tell you," his request got her smile down into a nervous one._

 _"Can't yooooou?"_

 _"Last time was me, nu-uh." She twitched her white whiskers in dissatisfaction but the prospect of having to talk to somebody close got her to grab her can and head to the side of the tree where thicker branches were nailed like a ladder towards its crown where some more makeshift planks from random wood materials were forming a small watchtower from where Sam was watching her in glee. She could tell someone about her day, someone who'd listen, not that her sisters wouldn't but she needed someone to understand and only he had shown her that he did, only him… She grabbed onto leverage and slowly began pulling herself up step after step that cracked slowly and safely._

 _Maybe she could explain him why, he wouldn't judge her, she knew that he'd be supportive as he'd always been and that he'd know or at least help her out somehow, like they had done for each other countless times. Her grip slipped off and she almost dropped the heavenly food that she was thinking of sharing with Sam, but the Carrot Lord heard her thoughts as she saved it with the speed of a snapping turtle. She got to the hole surrounded with the tiny fort that lay nailed to the tree's big and thick boughs, and as she slid in, she saw Sam looking out with a pair of binoculars and away into the wobbled dark distance with his medium-grey tail hanging low._

 _She tried to sneak to him but one of her steps creaked and she frowned at herself for it. "You aren't that light anymore," he said without looking back and she shook her head in disbelief of what he had implied._

 _"Har-har." Without even waiting for him to turn, she dropped both objects from her paws and sprinted towards him as if her life was on the line, a leap forming as her legs coiled like a spring and shot her straight at his upper half, where she collided in with paws grabbing around his white neck and hugging him tightly in affection, while he gasped and shouted gibberish from panic, his binoculars falling off, and his paws trying to reach for it desperately._

 _"My binoculars! No! Jules… wh—" She pulled up the strap up and smiled at him from the side of his head, to which he murmured angrily and moved to the side, with her around him, where a dirty mattress with blankets lay as well as water and some cans of food. Sam was obviously bigger than Judy with his hips being wide but his waist being narrow, which was strange, while Judy would almost reach the tip of his shoulder in terms of height, while his fur resembled pale black without the area of his muzzle and neck. She got off of him as he sat grumpily, and she moved in front, grabbing his paws in the process and shaking them anxiously, visibly showing him that she wanted to know more about where he had been, while her eyes tried to see as much of him as possible._

 _"What has happened to you?!" he began sharply and pulled her closer to him as his paw reached for her bloodied ear to examine it as well for her brownish-red paws that had been stained as well. "Are you hurt… wh— w-who did this to you?" Light poured from the side of the make-do bed where an electric lamp buzzed lively, a lamp that was soon going to attract a lot of poor insects to their inevitable doom. The new shadows fumed above and around the tree's appendages with uninhabitable nests as well as ones with life from where a crow croaked angrily in an instant._

 _Sam's face was at last fully visible, face of white fur and two black lines going through the sides of his muzzle through his eyes and towards his back, a face filled with worry and concern for her. It made her to stare with great warmth at him. The croaking above tho was calling for her attention which was pulled in interest. She wondered if how the little birds felt, but judging from the light squeaks, the basic emotion had to be fear, an emotion she knew all too well… But all crashed down when Sam's next words evolved into a hard jolt of shock._

 _"Let's get you home." He grabbed her paw and pulled her towards the ladder but she yanked him hard and pushed him on the mattress with an oooff but he didn't let go and dragged her with him and they rolled towards the edge of the fort in dizziness, Judy finding herself on top and Sam on the bottom with an expression filled with horror._

 _"No! I don't want to… Just cuts from a bush… I don't want to go home, Sam…" But he was still staring at her, well more like below her head which got her too look down and blush feverishly and cover herself as her silver fur was being exposed from the ruining of her shirt. Her paws hugged her around and she just sat away in embarrassment, while Sam shuffled slowly and got to her side in a respectable distance, neither looking at each other and both holding their breath tight._

 _"I-I-I… s-sorry… I've n-never… ughmm… seen you like… ahmm… just… d-didn't mean… well to stare… s-sorry…" Of course he hadn't, it had just happened because of reasons… Yet even as she understood that nothing crazy had really transpired, somehow instinctively she felt some kind of shame and a feeling of uncomfortableness that couldn't be explained with words to anyone else but herself._

 _"It's alright… yea… don't worry, Sam… just forgot…" She felt him move away and feared that she had scared him but then saw him pull out short-sleeved shirt out of his knapsack, one that had a logo of a race car but when he glanced at her again, his paws went for his eyes and he threw the shirt into her lap as if it were on fire._

 _"S-sorry! H-here!" Some words of encouragement tried to go out but instead she smiled understandingly in amusement of his actions. He was such a shy mammal, so caring and empathic. He was such a gem in the large sea of empty shells. Her pink shirt easily got away from her upper torso and she hugged herself from bashfulness as if Sam was watching but his paws were on his eyes and his badgery back was turned against her, to which she gulped the flush, and smiling, she put the new shirt that was a few sizes too big to which it wrinkled around her hips and almost reached her knees, while the aroma of fresh laundry invaded her senses. It had worked tho and she was glad for his care, so she tugged the fur on his arm but he didn't move._

 _She stood up and got in front of him again but saw that he was hiding himself tightly as if he was scared of seeing her like that. So gentle, so thoughtful… but what if he was being as such because he didn't like how she looked? What if she was disgusting? Such thoughts would've never came if it were not for her devastating day, the thoughts tho plagued her hard and she shook him harsher as to get his attention, yet he just leveled his head at her but didn't move his arms away._

 _"I'm done, silly. C'mon." His paws moved away slowly and his embers shined at her with a lot of hesitance, while his apologetic expression didn't even falter as it even deepened. "I know that… because of that… but do you think… that, ughmm… I look… bad?" The question visibly pierced him like an arrow of death, as if what was said was the last thing he had actually even imagined in this short moment of awkwardness, as if she was doubting his friendship between his reactions that were of no point considered unnatural._

 _"W-What? Of course no! You look great… I didn't mean that… not that it matters… j-just… not s-supposed to see… you know…" She didn't need him to say it outright or her to do so as well, thus she grabbed his cheeks and mushily began stretching them to which he groaned and batted her away with his paws, while his claws scraped against her skin, yet it didn't hurt but tickled as he never let his scrapers to sharpen as he always dulled them, never liking violence himself. "You look silly," he chuckled to which she glanced down at herself again, the sleeves were hiding her paws and the shirt was hanging loose but she was decent and it was all that mattered, yet he was teasing her and he wasn't going to get away with it._

 _Therefor, without warning, she leaped at the unexpecting predator who became the prey at that very moment, as she pushed against him and rolled him around the blankets as they wrestled childishly. But being a predator, he always acted instinctively when playing and his teeth found their way onto her healthy ear where he squeezed and got her to squeal lowly in excitement, while her feet dug into his belly rapidly and got him to laugh loudly, thus getting him to release her and roll away in a ball of giggles. But while at it, she noticed the side of his mouth behind his canines being discolored in dark purple which stormed all the fun out of her and drove her quickly next to him, which in turn got him halt everything and just stare with confusion but closed mouth._

 _"Would you open your mouth?" she probed seriously to which Sam flinched away as if in shame and refused to even meet her gaze._

 _"It's nothing…" But she wasn't having it and quickly grabbed his muzzle which she pulled apart with the groans and gurgles of the resisting badger, yet she saw what she needed, there was a long bruise along the underside of his upper lip which definitely looked to be from a punch, as she knew how those looked anyhow, having had them herself and not just in a single occasion. His jaw quickly snapped shut, which got her fur to raise but without much more effects because she just felt at ease near him, and he moved away from her, close to the rim of the wooden surface._

 _"It's her again, isn't it?" The question remained unanswered and as he sat with legs hanging out the little fort, she got to his side and put a paw on his shoulder as to show him her support and the warmth she could offer if he just accepted it. His breath came and went, while the commotion upstairs lowered to occasional croaks of ire. But after one more emberly glance, he faltered at last._

 _"I was too sick this week to do anything… and she just got angry… but you know, she isn't okay… it's not her fault…" It wasn't her fault? Whose fault was it then, Sam's? He was the best mammal she knew and all he was getting in return was this repugnant treatment of violence and abuse. It was… unacceptable! She just couldn't hold the opinion to herself even if the thoughts of hypocrisy flashed like bullets of end._

 _"This isn't the first time! You've got to do something… I can… I can help you!" But his head remained still and his eyes stared down the hill as if her words were a ghostly ship sailing through the storming billows of inevitable disaster, yet some managed to go through the murky cataclysm as he sighed sadly._

 _"I'll be alright… don't worry about me, heh… You know I'm not one to surrender, just like you." Judy tried to say something, but his last words hit hard on the problem that had been chasing her all day, she was advising him to try and make a change when she was recently going over quitting herself… Hypocrisy… One large and nasty bucket-load of hypocrisy that got the anxiety inside to foam and sizzle to which she tried to just talk about anything else that'd get her mind out of the grim cemetery of failure. But her ears went up and Sam's half-obscured face brimmed with shock. "The cuts! We gotta patch 'em up… come on… there's Band-Aid in the car." She wanted to object at first but then again, the distraction was going to work and there was no point in keeping herself in the thick sloughs of regression._

 _He passed her the buzzing lantern that had been swarmed by little flies led astray by the false shepherd. "So… how was school? Anything crazy happen while I wasn't there?" Her whiskers twitched as she didn't want to show him her hypocrisy because then he'd be disappointed in her just like the rest of the world around._

 _"Well… Sharla got an F at maths… and made a scandal with Mrs Hipton…"_

 _"That must've been good." They got to the amatuerly-made ladder and she waited for him as he slowly moved down while she squinted her eyes at the bark where the inscription 'Built by S/J' lay dug in the old tree itself. They had both made this in the past and she didn't even know why she had agreed to do so, yet Sam could be very persuasive if he wanted to and in the end it had turned out right, it definitely served as a place for him to imitate being a ranger scout overlooking for trouble around, a childish fantasy. But as she knew, time devoured and spew, as it had with her dream that now was almost nearing complete demolition._

 _"You know how she is… used to be a teacher when they would make you kneel on corn for punishment…" The sizzling lamp swooshed around as she trailed slowly down._

 _"Or lock you in a cage in front of the class." Well it wasn't greatly a lie that but there wasn't any evidence of it but the legends and myths that'd go from generation to generation, her Pops being one of those who was keeping the fires of the past ablaze. It wasn't as if she didn't like him, but he didn't like her, yet that didn't stop him from trying to teach her important advice, one of them being that she was biting more than she could chew, a phrase repeated too much for her own liking. Yet he was being bias, as he himself had been more than just the usual bunny, having worked on the construction of Zootopia in the long-distant past, yet he never talked about even when asked by the curious little Judy._

 _"Hey, that's not true!... anyways… Sharla managed to get Mrs H—"_

 _"Buttstick…" Oh how she hated him using such words and nicknames, they weren't proper and were supposed to be banished from one's dictionary, yet he did even when she would constantly nag him not to._

 _"Don't call her that!" His snort from below echoed into the air around._

 _"Hey, just stating fact. I mayn't have classes with her anymore but she sure acted like a hare with a stick in her b—" Judy wasn't going to let him run his mouth because he would trail off and stopping would be like getting a full-out train without brakes to lose all speed instantly, something impossible._

 _"Bla-bla…" –she looked down from around the lamp and saw his nervous expression aimed at her- "So Mrs B—Hipton—"_

 _"Ha, you almost said it!" Well, what did he want from her, the tongue just took what was close to memory!_

 _"Shush you… She finds the test and goes over it in front of the whole class. And she'd forgotten to check the page on the other side… I don't think I've ever seen her humiliated! Sharla was so smug about it, she wouldn't shut up the whole week."_

 _"Sounds like her alright…" He jumped off the makeshift ladder and Judy did so as well with the lantern swinging below her paw noisily. The rays tho were many and she could see a pretty big portion of the old country car, having completely welded itself into the earth and springing life in places where mammalkind hadn't engineered it to be able to, while the crayon drawings around the frame served as brisk memories, tho the stack of tin cans and trash of other was piled where the backseats used to be, the space serving as a small dumpster. Sam opened the side where the glove box was but the door only opened so slightly and jammed to do so any further, to which he huffed uneasily and scooted through as he wasn't that big either. "Anything else?"_

 _"Well… Gideon had his tail caught between the cafeteria's doors… I didn't believe that foxes could scream so loud and squeakily…"_

 _"Must've been an accident, 'ey?"_

 _"Oh, yes… there was a… hard current in the corridor… very accidental…"_

 _"With you being in the middle… sounds very-very accidental… Would've loved to see him in class… when things like that happen to him… it's a must."_

 _"Yup." The car trashed and a happy silent aha got through the space of the slightly opened door, from where escaped Sam with busy paws and a satisfied smile. She didn't look at what he was carrying and hurried towards the trunk where she jumped on and nestled herself in a spot where the seat had lightly given in from the constant sitting in such a position, acting like a small hole, where now lay the young bunny with a lantern on her side, far enough so that the insects wouldn't try to land on the airfield that was her fur. Sam came by, not needing any additions to guide his way, and climbed up like a normal mammal, yet he wasn't a bunny which meant that she had climbed like a normal mammal too… a normal bunny… as normal as she could be._

 _He sat near and took her paw where the blood had streaked and clotted, but when she saw the bottle which's cork he had pulled open, she yanked herself away and shouted disturbingly, "No! Not with that… It'll color my fur…" It was a small bottle with black liquid inside, iodine, an antiseptic used for wounds or surgeries but the side effect was that it would color the area of impact with red and that was very annoying, even if it did the job well. There was other medicine that was way better and less messy if not perfect. Like ethanol…_

 _"It's okay… only a bit of red… come here before you get an infection." She didn't want to but the patience that Sam radiated at last got her to murmur to herself something about badgers and predators but at last her paw found its way into his and she felt stinging around the wound which got her to grit her teeth hard as the flames jumped around her sensitive skin. "Don't tell me that Travis had it good too?" he asked while spreading the dark liquid around, while the pain subsided slowly. That was when he reached for a Band-Aid, which he carefully put around the cut. One would think that placing such where there was fur would be an incredibly stupid idea, but these were made so that if you'd spray them with water, they'd lose their strength and fall easily without ripping of precious hair._

 _"Of course not— h-hey!" but his paws were already on her cheek and examining, so his muzzle was near her own and her nose twitched at the scent of wood and earth and subtle muskiness his head scented out around her, while his embers had carefully squinted at her cheek where he put the colorful red which stung hard but not as bad as her paw. His claws were careful and his fingers were twisting and turning around her silver fur, which in the terms of sensations felt rather good but the spot he was working on didn't have a good history itself and it was going to be brought up again apparently as he touched the place gently and stopped for some moments of cricket silence, while the concern was working up a blush on her own._

 _"They still haven't healed… have they…" Of course they hadn't, they were deep to which the fur there just didn't grow back and even with some traditional medicine, she couldn't remove them entirely and the three horizontal reminders of her weakness were etched on her body in force. They used to be a reminder for what she was fighting against, a reminder to keep watch over her when she was to lead herself astray but now, now they acted as a reminder that she was vulnerable and frail, a dumb bunny with over-imagined ambitions which were worthy of fairy-tale fiction._

 _"No… I don't think they will…" It was hard to keep the monsters of the day away and Sam was visibly catching on but she knew why he wasn't pressing on, he'd always be patient and wait out until she was ready to talk about a problem, always so careful and thoughtful, it made her eyes to glister for a moment as she distracted herself away from him even if it was slightly impossible from the sheer closeness that was getting her warmer and warmer…_

 _"Don't worry. It won't happen again." He said firmly with a frown and reached with the patch to cover the clean wound that had went across those same scars. She wondered if it was a good time, if she should actually involve him in her issues and it wasn't a first of her thinking that way, as she had many times told him that she wanted to be strong and deal with her own luggage herself, yet he had shown her that sharing the burden wasn't something to be ashamed off, especially if he wanted to have it shared. "You were saying about Travis?" And her chance to start had failed at the startup, maybe it was better for the events to just be known to her and only her and those that had done them to her?_

 _He reached for her lightly-throbbing ear that at the touch got her stomach to squeeze in excitement. "Ughmmm… you know how he loves his worm sandwiches? Heh, well… he had a bit of a surpri— Oww!" The iodine stung as hard as never and got her eyes water as she tried to push him away but due to meeting the wall of failure as the reluctant badger pushed against her, she hit her head in the backside of the seat, from where some leaves fell from above, and cramped her teeth in a hellish whimper of pain that raced through her body like lightning of paralyzation._

 _"Sorry… just a little more." Just a little more, it sounded sweetly comforting to her aching ear that was as if it were on fire and ice. What had been on those thorns… a batch of diseases? Her paws tried to reach for her tall appendages but she forced them down to her mouth that she pulled down by the fur as if causing herself more pain would do the trick of saving her from what was above. But she knew why it hurt so much, her ears were just too sensitive, they were filled with blood and nerves and it just was the last place she wanted to have an injury, yet here she was… A distraction… a distraction had to be conjured!_

 _"He had accidently put in hot sauce… a lot… I've never seen a ferret run so fast… or anyone at that…" Oh yes, it had been incredible to witness the little asshole ferret receive some justice after having had bullied some students from the other classes with Gideon, they both deserved it and she didn't feel even a drop of guilt for what had happened. Not that she knew who had done those things… But whoever it was, they had done an exceptional job. A very well-thought execution… But her small smile fainted into ash as some pieces of the jigsaw puzzle crashed violently together and got her to realize that maybe the perpetrator was found out… Her awful day may've not been a coincidence._

 _"Definitely a great week." He put the last Band-Aid on her ear and moved away. "Done." And his warmth fled the scene as he sat at some distance from her and her eyes went across the flashy horizon of ink and white and yellow and black. There was no point in troubling him more than necessary with her dumbness, he already had enough issues on his paws at home, a home she didn't see capable of even being called as such but he had told her countless times that he'd figure it out and fix things as she couldn't do anything, yet she had persisted and persisted even to this day… But why was she doing that with him and not with herself…_

 _"What're you having in mind of the special day?" The only response was a very silly-sound of huh that got her to stop thinking altogether. Had she forgotten something? "Don't tell me you forg— but it's your birthday, Jules… how could you!" Ahh… her birthday, the day she would go up a year and was supposed to feel older and more mature, yet the excitement was non-existent because it just didn't mean much to her. Her parents had so many kits, birthdays were never something occasional and encouraged as that would spell disaster if her parents would have to organize more than 200 events a year…_

 _"It's not a big deal…" She didn't blame them, it had taught her that she wasn't that special as she had fantasized to have been, as the exceptional attention at her vocal dreams had manage to fixate it pretty good as an idea, yet it wasn't in the most positive way as some of her brothers and sisters were jealous and would act unfriendly without even knowing that the attention wasn't that desired in the first place. But it wasn't that bad, she couldn't be friends with everybody, even her own blood and that was a-okay with her, nothing to be gloomy about._

 _"You're turning 11, it's a big deal, Little Squirt." Her head turned around angrily at him as he had just teased her about being younger, something that he always loved to nag her about when she'd try to argue about when she shouldn't. Well, and when he wanted to help her and she was declining, as if he knew that deep down she was thinking otherwise._

 _"Hey! I'm not a Squirt, we're just 2 years apart, Grandpa," she playfully returned and pushed his shoulder that moved closer to his head that was a few degrees shy of a smirk._

 _"Still bigger." True but there wasn't going to be backing down from this, thus she scoffed and fixated her lilacs at him._

 _"You wish." The snort that followed was the last thing said as her eyes trailed along the view she had been leering at since first managing to painfully crawl here. Nothing had changed as the shroud of black had kept its domain strong around the land of forests and fields and rivers, its reign being questioned only in the spots of civilization. Yet, everything was different not because it really was but because of the mammal close to her who was peacefully doing the same as her, just resting and enjoying the company of the other. Such small changes, adding so much more to the basket of life and experiences, it got her to play with her lip with her buck tooth as she wondered around again about how she felt about him and their friendship as something was just constantly fussing at her these last months, something unknown and new and thrilling._

 _"Ughm… we didn't talk about coming here… I mean you know why I'm… but why're you here?" Why was she here… the question she wanted to explore to the depths of its existence, yet didn't want to even think about at the same time. A dilemma without a course nor end, one filled with hardships and terrific properties of horror. A complicated conundrum that she couldn't solve or even decipher. Therefor, with anxiety being let right in to do as it pleased, her chest caved in and her blood began losing its life while her eyes quivered lifelessly as she wanted to let it out but not being able to due to the barrier set up by her own pride and fear._

 _"Just needed some fresh air…" the white lie was drawn with a hiss of air that shot through the spring breeze in sync, thus losing itself along the way and getting Sam to disapprovingly frown at her, while understanding was greatly etched in par as well. She didn't know how he was capable of mashing such tasks at once, thus a questionable flick of her whiskers followed._

 _"Don't doooo that."_ _His paws went between his legs that he squeezed and his body lightly tugged towards her at an angle as to vex her to tell him. He did look rather adorable like this and that managed to instill a light snort from her dejected mouth of uncertainties. She was unsure, greatly hesitant about doing so but he'd never forget about her troubles and lying was out of the equation because it was wrong, it was not her way. It wasn't going to hurt to let it all out, to release the stream to flow wherever the path may seem. Therefor, with a douse of guilty-great shame, she decided to crush the black ice around her tightening chest._

 _"I don't know…" she began at long last, still feeling unsafe to continue but the decision was made, it was done and there was no running away because this… was the only way. "It wasn't a good week…" Sam's lack of reaction to those words told her that he had already figured it out, so she played with the reddened fingers of her paw. "I mean… probably it was long coming but…" Oh it definitely was. They may have done her wrong but she never backed away from a fight and probably had caused this herself, by negligence._

 _"Don't worry… you can tell me anything." Of course she could but saying it so himself was even more so reassuring, it got her to exhale the plagued breath of toxicity and slap her thighs with her paws, to which she turned to him and settled her lilacs right on point._

 _"You know that Gideon has been trying on making me quit since that day… Well today he caught me after school when I was heading home… It wasn't just him… Travis and Gareth… and some others who I didn't know. They grabbed me and got all my notebooks out… and I had… my big notebook where… w-where my notes for the police were…" –her voice: unstable; her paws: tightened into fists, but her eyes did so otherwise- "they… t-they burned it…" –all her work and troubles, all her time and investment was destroyed in the span of a minute where she had trashed and screamed and bitten, yet she couldn't save her work, couldn't save her dream as it had flamed before her in cinders and nothingness- "T-They b-burned it all… all my w-work! Just b-because he wants me to f-fail, to p-p-prove that he's r-right…"_

 _"Did you tell your pa—"_

 _"No… they'd p-probably be h-happy…" That wasn't far from the truth because her father always talked how she should just leave it be and that she was spending too much time learning about stuff that wasn't necessary to be known, while her mother had tried to keep at the promise she had given but never managing to fully do so as she had told her herself that she couldn't support such a dangerous decision. "And it m-made me… made me r-realize how… d-dumb I've been… chasing fantasies… I c-couldn't protect myself and I want… to p-protect others?... I'm always so afraid, s-scared…"_

 _"Don't ta—" But she wasn't letting him interrupt, everything had to go out at once or it wouldn't be able to start anew, it just wouldn't and she knew it too perfectly even if the guilt of not taking Sam's initiation was prickling her thundering heart that was being wrenched and wrenched with every passing word that fled her little throat._

 _"Even tonight I couldn't get here w-without almost getting lost… frozen with f-fear… like a bunny s-should be! I'm nothing m-more than a d-dumb b-bunny… I think that I s-should… I should… quit…" There it was, at last what she had mused about all day came out as solid manifestations of words that were carried so bitterly, so dearly bleak and unwanted, yet she knew that the way had to be taken because she just couldn't see a way forward with all this anxiety, all this fear that was just… incapacitating. The wind felt colder and the darkness less hospitable even if she had the light around herself, the only source of heat, the only beacon amidst the raging sea that was trying to swallow her alive._

 _"I guess you're right…"Even if she was ready to hear him agree with her, being so fast with a voice stricken in dejection, her eyes defied to look anywhere but at her feet. "The dumb bunny should quit." The words were like a hammer bashing into her heart, leveling it with the ground and getting its contents spilled and discarded, she felt greater pain than ever before, even if she had believed to be ready to hear his disappointment come out, to turn real. She didn't feel warmth and his company was starting to get less and less likeable, but her thoughts were racing too fast, and Sam's words were moving too slow… Until they weren't. "But that isn't you."_

 _Her shivering lip stopped instantly, almost unnaturally fast, and her head slowly glanced towards him, his light smile and great amount of concern waltzing around his blazing embers, while he moved closer and the lonely heat of the lamp wasn't no more as now Sam's could be felt in turn as well. He wasn't disappointed, there was something more and greater… like… belief… and… hope._

 _"The Judy I know wouldn't ever run away. She doesn't know when to quit… don't you remember?" She brushed the sad tears off her eyes and smiled kindly._

 _"Do you know what I tell myself when I feel scared so much that I can't sleep?" Now that was something new, he had never told her such an event having happened… What had happened for him to having been so scared? But the interest in knowing what he told himself got her to remain passive and silent, to listen and absorb._

 _"There is nothing to fear but fear itself." Her ears fell, her eyes widened so much that her orbs looked as if they'd pop out. There was nothing to fear but fear itself. It wasn't what caused the fear but the feeling of fear only. Even if she wasn't still capable of battling with the demons of surrender, thinking about them and cowering for herself wasn't the way, it was wrong and unhealthy because she'd go as far as the next bad day would let her. But if she learned to control her fears and tame them against themselves, then maybe she could persevere against all odds, against Gideon, speciesm and society's whip of outdated principles._

 _She was trying to be strong, trying to not to let the next attempt of getting her off the train to get her down when she should've spent her energy and time on getting her mind and body to control the big obstructor: fear itself. The tool of tyrants, the tool of evil, a tool capable of getting even the strongest to fall if they aren't taught to defend themselves against such forces of darkness in disguise. She could do it, find a course to persevere, it was possible and a way was now visible in the long and swampy fields of mulch and bog. Yet, she had put so much work into that notebook, the notes trailing back to years of compressed information…_

 _"So stop thinking about those bullies. I'll help you like you helped me… they'll get what's coming for them… Those notes, we can write them back." Did he just offer to help her regain what was lost? Her heart anvilled faster but not in a suffocating manner but in one of great warmth, thus her paws huddled closely to it and her vision began blurring. "I've even been thinking… we can even be partners on the force… if you'd like…" Sometimes expecting the unexpected couldn't even get you ready for it as her speechlessness was in the form of an opened mouth and a battlefield inside her mind… He wanted to be her partner? That… how… when?!_

 _There wasn't a possibility of holding herself from this, her insides had melted into glowing water and she reached eagerly for his head that she pulled to her, his body hitting the sizzling lamp and getting it to fall between them, while her paws squeezed hard, as if in despair but rather in a very affectionate Judy-way. She couldn't believe her ears and her ears couldn't believe it too, her tears had changed from ones of sorrow to ones of joy and her whole body just beamed happiness, it beamed vigor._

 _"Thank you, S-Sam… thank you s-so much…" She slowly released and her lilacs didn't even move away for a second, unfaltering and gentle, she just leered into his bashful state, it made him look so adorable, so likeable that she just wanted to cuddle with him forever, so she tilted her head to the side and one of her ears bended forward while her whiskers fell down as to show him what she wanted, to which he snorted unsurprisingly._

 _"Oh not those cute eyes again… wh— no! Jules, I'm s-sorry I d-didn't m-mean to… just s-slipped…" Her playfulness had died, he had just called her cute for the first time in her life and that stormed a very large mountain of hidden emotions that began flooding out in the form of fast heartbeat and belly fluttering, while her body flushed in almost a portion of a second. She knew about the birds and the bees, even before having been told. But having had such unexperienced sensations when just thinking about him was very strange… it was bizarre… it was making her curious and daring. There was nothing to fear but fear itself right? If she didn't act upon her feelings, wouldn't she be forfeiting the battle that she had realized that needed to be fought?_

 _"I d-don't w-want to— let's j-just sa—" Her paws grabbed his white scruff, which pulled a gasp from him, while her mouth shot straight for his muzzle. Her eyes closed and her lips collided with his fur, which ended the passion quick and got her lilacs to blossom open. She had missed as she had hit the rim of the inner side because of the difference between them both and that made her petrified and very embarrassed, while Sam didn't seem less so because his cheeks visibly held that blush that Judy could feel on herself altogether._

 _With a head facing down, she shot away from him and flashed away quickly because she didn't know what to do or say, the awkwardness having reached a hard stew in her inexperience, with this new realm getting her unable to think of anything else to do but just let what she had done to simmer down. This was a very good time for the crow to begin being defensively-annoying again but there wasn't such luck, so she pulled her knees up and rested her head as if to hide herself from the world, due to her failure to make even one simple and appreciating kiss._

 _"U-ughm… I…. h-ha—… y-yea…" His voice was wobbly and lacked any sort of certainty and that at least was managing to reduce the heated debate inside her head if she had made the wrong choice, if this was either a beginning of something more or the end of their friendship as it was. It all summed up to her decision that may've seemed impulsive but really wasn't all too much because if she had kept it just a fantasy, the problem would've come up one day and would've bitten her hard. That would've probably spelt disaster, especially if she hadn't realized how wrong she had been all along and not in a way that she'd believed to be._

 _Her gut was telling her that this was what was right, what had to be done, it was basking her insides in fluttery that flew high above the clouds of white and grey, above it all in a new and yet unexplored world of greater possibilities that either were to spell debacle or exulting progress. Him showing her yet again his care and concern, while helping her see more than the length of her nose, it was just inevitable and impending like a tsunami after an earthquake. It didn't matter how anyone else saw it, she knew he didn't believe in such old-fashioned idiocracies, society's bias iron curtain of enslavement._

 _"Have y-you seen… p-probably left i-it in t-the treefo—" He was trying to act as if nothing had happened, she didn't like that because it was undermining her courage for this long step, it got her bashfulness to sing harder but her muscles carried her straight into Sam who fell on his back on the seats with an agitated bunny that had stopped the light and had thrown the blanket over the both of them, now being glued against his chest without giving him the opportunity to remove her normally which was the quick plan all along. Her paws were tendrils that had nailed themselves around him and they had no intention of letting go, there was no room for surrender amidst the ocean of embarrassment and hesitance._

 _"Y-you w-want t-to s-snuggle?... yea… o-okay… y-yea…" He wasn't against it, it wasn't like this was the first time, yet this was the first time after she had shown him how she felt and he wasn't proving any dislike, which was greatly pulling the strings of relief into her booming heart. The earthly scent, the appreciated warmth, the further-developed affection. He was to be her future partner, he was her best friend… and maybe… maybe even something more… She liked the sound of that and knew that it was possible, she could always try again and maybe push him to do the same, to show him that there was nothing to be embarrassed about even if her whole frame was intoxicated with the flush of her decisions, yet she felt as happy as ever._

 _"There's nothing to fear but fear itself," Judy mumbled underneath the blanket with Sam's warmth by her side, it was as if the chained boulder around her chest had broken into tiny invisible pieces of freedom. It was as if…_

 _She had found who she was at last..._

 _Found who she truly wanted to be…_

 _Found who she wanted to do it with…_

* * *

Judy stirred awake but didn't open her eyes. She felt that she was on something sturdy and uncomfortable as well as her burning cheek that she was as well laying on, thus she slowly stood up and sat on her butt, while feeling pain in her head with every thrust of blood from her heart. She at last opened her sensitive eyes and the light blinded her for some moments, until she got used to it and saw that she was in a very small room with a toilet, a wooden bench she was currently sitting on, and a steel prison gate that looked rather rusty.

She realized where she was at, sighed sadly, and leaned against the thick concrete wall and because it was cold she moved her head to the left and put her swollen cheek on it so she could reduce the irritating inflammation. It felt slightly better and she tried to remember how she had gotten to this cell but everything was so hazy, as she had only bits and pieces. She could remember clearly everything that had happened before getting hit by the weasel but after that, pretty much nothing. She began checking herself out and saw that her duty belt was missing, her phone that thank the Carrot Lord she had put a password on, her uniform that was till on her but she couldn't spot anything else.

But then, then she touched the left upper part of her chest and her breathing stopped. She couldn't feel her badge, her badge was missing. Anxiety and fear entangled her. Where was her achievement, her pride, her hard work. Because of the dazed state she still was in, she grabbed her head with both paws and tried to remember and it didn't take long until she realized that if she was in a cell.

That meant that they have probably taken it and that it was safe, so she closed her eyes and tried to control her breathing, which wasn't very calm at that very moment, wanting to calm herself down. She didn't see reason for being in a cell and not the weasel. He had tried to beat up and probably kill a detained mammal that was filled with toxins from her tranquilizer.

What was she to do? Just walk away? Not in a million years was she going to do that sort of misdeed, that sort of unfairness, and injustice. She would never become like them. What she did was justifiable, it was the right thing to do, and she would do it again if she could and had to. She remembered how the weasel had laid there on the dirty-cold concrete and groaned as well as whimpered from pain, the pain that he liked to inflict on others, the pain that she gave him to taste.

That made her smirk maliciously from satisfaction that she at last had done what she had wished for so much, to punch him or in this case, to kick him hard, so hard that she had injured even herself. She was satisfied that justice had been served, even if it was very minor. But her smirk died quickly because of her injured cheek that made her to ouch and become downcast, not liking where she was at, and thinking that she was about to be framed if she was in jail.

This could cost her the job she craved since her childhood, her future, her dream, her purpose. Tears formed in her half-closed eyes but she quickly chased away her emotions and just stared at the brown-wooden bench, just enjoying the silence, the silence that didn't manage to endure for long.

Footsteps and very disturbing coughing was heard from up the stairs and it seemed that the mammal was headed towards the cells. The doe didn't even bother to look who that was as she faced the wall with her shoulder towards the cell door. The footsteps stopped at her temporary home, and she heard the rubbing of paws against the steel rods, like someone was gripping them with excessive strength.

"You kicked me good, gahh"-groaning and heavy breathing could be heard-"v-very good, you little ssshit," sneered the weasel quietly and rather hoarsely. That got her to scrutinize at the mammal she didn't want to even glance at because he was the reason for her misery and the misery of others.

She locked daggers on him and that got him to chuckle repugnantly but then to start coughing very roughly again, and he seemed that he couldn't breathe very well. "If you had hit me closer to my snout"-he grabbed his bandaged throat and whimpered-"you would've broken all my teeth, argh… y-y-you little cunt," he spat again discordantly as he was visibly in quite a lot of agony, which wasn't sparking any compassion within her.

Judy scoffed, not moved by his insults because he looked miserable and retorted fearlessly, "Next time, I'll aim better." That got the weasel's mouth to start curling into a snarl, his canines began grazing the steel bars, thus making an uncomfortable grinding sound, and he was about to growl when another set of coughing hit him and made him fall on the cold floor. She wanted to laugh but knew that it would be painful so just snickered very lightly, knowing very well that he was powerless to hurt her at that very moment.

The weasel bared his teeth and she could see the side close to the base of his jaw, that there was a missing tooth as well as 2 chipped ones but her observations were broken when he heard him spit and she put her paws to shield her face, a face that had gone through enough. But she didn't feel anything and moved her angry eyes towards him, while doing so she saw the spit on the floor. He had missed.

She leveled her scornful gaze at him and could see the dissatisfaction etched on his whole body. But where was that toothpick of his? That was more interesting if she was to be honest with herself. Where was it… "Next time there won't be"-he grimaced in pain-"there won't be anyone to save you. You fucking r-rodent," he promised threateningly and she could see the burning hatred in his bloodshot eyes, eyes that spoke volumes of his insanity, therefor she decided not to push her luck because maybe she wasn't as safe as she thought she was, thinking that he may come back and shoot her, while she was in her cell, and not liking that unlikely scenario even one bit.

The weasel seemed satisfied that she didn't talk back and he smirked, jabbing after a few moments, "Better start looking for a job, Flopsy"-he hit the bars with his paws and had a very amused expression-"the ex-copsy," he quipped and started laughing, which visibly caused him a great deal of discomfort, and he managed to growl from frustration. He finally took his leave with paws under his throat and a wobbly gait but he couldn't hold it much longer and she heard his disgruntled coughs and whimpers from up the stairs.

Judy pulled her legs towards her, put her bruised head between them and just stared at the floor, which was surprisingly clean. She felt awful that she was going to lose her job but maybe there was still hope, maybe… She felt her emotions to start flooding back and her eyes were beginning to quiver but she grit her teeth and didn't let them manifest, by using all her determination and energy that was left.

So, she just stayed there and waited for the verdict, the verdict that would decide whether her dream was going to end now and there or it was going to continue existing. She really hoped for the 2nd one, she really did. But it was likely that she was going to fail, to be a disappointment to herself, to prove everyone that they were right all along. That thought made her to tremble, and she hated the position she was in. Why was everything against her. Why had she allowed delusion to remain. Why did she believe when she shouldn't have.

The depressing thoughts started plaguing her already tired and in pain mind, a mind that wasn't clear, a mind that was now troubled and the weight from everything that had recently happened was now heavy, with the burden being exclusively draining. She just didn't feel to have any energy, energy that had just disappeared, energy that without, how could she go on?

* * *

Judy was released after an unknown amount of time that for her felt like decades and was sent to the infirmary first, with the notice to go straight to the Chief after she was checked, and she did just that. She was examined for broken bones and fractures and it seemed that there were none, only bruises and a small concussion that the examiner said would fade away after a day. She received some pills for the pain and instructions to put ice on the swelled up bruises, which were rather annoying but she was glad that they were only as such and nothing more severe that had to be endured.

The doe began walking towards the Chief's office, or more like limping because her shin was hurting every time she put pressure on it as the meds didn't seem to be helping at all. Passing by Clawhauser's desk, she couldn't spot anyone there as the lobby was empty, with its white lights now shinning bright. She could clearly see the darkness outside, darkness that very clearly resembled her mood and situation, which made her sigh sadly. She chose to take the elevator, not liking the idea of walking and feeling pain on every step, and the elevator she took.

Arriving on the 2nd floor, she could see some mammals in their offices on the other side of the building, with the curved glass railing on her left that overlooked the lobby below, who were probably finishing up work or starting, as some were on night shifts, while she continued limping towards the Chief's office.

After rounding the corner, she noticed Thane exit that dreaded place, accompanied by the booming shouts of the Chief, and from his expression as well as his brown-tipped-tucked tail between his legs, knew that he wasn't very amused. She remembered when Duke told her with his painful but malicious voice that nobody was going to save her next time, and she took a guess that it was Thane who had stopped Duke from further damaging her, for which she was thankful, yet couldn't forgive him for supporting the weasel, and knew that he had done it to save his on fur. The least she could do was to at least acknowledge him from a professional standpoint.

"Sergeant," she articulated and didn't even bother to look at him, while limping towards the intimidating cubicle.

"Hopps," He returned the courtesy plainly and went on his way. The doe got to the towering door, inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to get the stress out of her system but it wasn't working at all. There was this incredible hesitation on her part, and she wondered if this was going to be her last day being a cop. But now was not the time, so she gathered her leftover strength and courage, and finally knocked.

A muffled yet loud shout was instantly heard from inside to enter but she couldn't jump towards the handle because of her hurtful leg, so she shouted loudly, "I can't open the door on my own, Sir." There was some silence and at last, she heard the heavy footsteps that definitely belonged to the water buffalo, who opened the door and looked at her with scorn.

She entered nervously without meeting his drilling gaze and headed towards the chairs but not before hearing the door to slam, which made her jump and whimper in pain because of her sudden movement. She sensed the Chief stomp by her, and could see that he was furious. Walking by the oversized chair, she pulled herself up and sat, leaning against the left chair's arm with drooped ears.

The Chief sat on his big seat, put his arms on his desk and plopped his head onto his hooves. He began murmuring something inaudible, probably praying or cursing. She couldn't really tell. Then he pinched his nose and looked at her threateningly, a look full with disappointment, which jolted her anger because it shouldn't have been pointed at her, so she scowled at the Chief and crossed her arms.

She saw the Chief's surprise which turned into fury very quickly. "You are in no POSITION!" he raged and it was very painful for the young doe, after which he hit his desk and she swore she heard it crack as well as spot steam coming out of his nostrils. "Police brutality. Assault on a fellow officer. Disobeying orders. Do I have to continue, Hopps?" the Chief roared while her nose was already twitching. _Police brutality?_

"Sir, with all due respect, I didn't do—"

Bogo intervened harshly, "So everyone, including the mammal you detained are LYING? Two high ranking officers that have been working here 10 times longer than you ARE LYING?" he shot so violently that the air in the room shook. She couldn't believe it. Nick was right all along. The Chief was being bias towards her and wasn't going to listen to her at all.

She was framed and was going to take all the blame and probably lose her job. What was the point of trying to defend herself when she couldn't prove a thing. Even the bear that was being assaulted by Weaselton had testified against her. She had nowhere to go, so she accepted her fate with distaste. It was so disgusting that the Chief couldn't see beyond his nose what mammals were doing in his department. She pitied him with all her heart.

Deciding that her best course of action would be to remain silent, she did just that and just looked at the towering buffalo blankly. He scrunched his face in discontent and continued, "You have been here for less than a week Hopps. I SHOULD FIRE YOU ON THE SPOT," he bellowed but she didn't register his words instantly and when she did, her heart started beating lively and hope filled her core. But it seemed that the buffalo wasn't finished.

"But if you do one more mistake. I don't care what kind of. Even if you are late. I'll send your badge FOR SCRAP!" he shouted and threw her badge at her, which she managed to catch with her injured paw, and gasped from pain. "Now get the hell out of my sight," he ordered, and she climbed off the chair as quickly as possible and limped towards the door. She stopped before it and started thinking on how she was going to close it in her injured state but heard another shout that pierced her brain from behind her, "OUT!" so she dashed through the opening and headed towards the elevator without even looking back. She needed to go to the cells and get her stuff that was taken for holding until she was released.

It was rather strange that she wasn't fired or worse, sentenced to serve time. Duke had told her that she was fired but then she saw Thane exit the Chief's office. What was going on was what she wanted to know but nothing made sense. What did was that she had her badge and was free to go without any further notice, which was extremely relieving. What was not tho was that she needed to walk.

After 15 excruciating minutes of going down the stairs and up after she had taken her duty belt, with everything on it; her phone; her wallet; her carrot pen, the pen she played the recording as to be sure that it was still there; and her used uniform that still smelled like Nick. At long last she managed to exit the PD and the fresh air, as fresh as it could be, brushed through her fur, creating a tickling and welcoming sensation for her but the fatigue was starting to kick in, and she felt exhaustion pulling her down.

She just wanted to go home and sleep off the incredibly bad day, probably the worst since she had started work. She could just take a cab, which would drive her to her rented apartment in under 10 minutes, but didn't want to waste her money on luxury, she could endure some more pain, so the decision was made to take public transport.

Half an hour later she arrived in front of the Grand Pangolin Arms, which made her smile but the smile sent waves of pain through her face and that got her to sigh from annoyance at her current state. Slowly, she climbed up the steps to the 2nd floor and got to her door. Chatter could be heard from her neighbour's room as well as laughter but she didn't pay it no mind and searched for her key, finding it after a bit and got into her small apartment quickly.

Very fast, she removed everything from her and threw it on the chair as well as desk, pulled out her checked blue pajamas from the drawer, put it on and crawled into her soft and heavenly bed, a bed that wasn't anything like that but the weariness was making it seem as such. She really wanted to shower and to tidy up but the tiredness and recent events had drained her usually endless energy.

Sleep was just going to overtake her when she heard a familiar voice from the other side of the wall, accompanied by yelling. Impulsiveness overruled, and she frustratingly shouted with all her might, "I'M TRYING TO SLEEP. DON'T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE!" and plopped her head into the cushion, a head that was still throbbing in pain but not as much as before. She felt sleep's grasp starting to take over her, sleep she wanted so much, sleep she needed so much, sleep she craved for with all her will.

* * *

"Wait, so you're telling me that you walked around with pink panties on your horns all day. And you didn't notice?" Nick asked, while looking at the kudu with disbelief and trying to hold his laughter at bay, which seemed to be working for the moment. Bucky seemed to be getting nervous and the tod just couldn't hold himself and started tittering tightly.

"What you expect. He is as dumb as a rock," Pronk jabbed and began laughing hard, joined quickly by Nick, who no more could hold himself.

Bucky growled frustratingly and yawped, "HOW COULD I SEE WHEN THEY GO BEHIND ME YOU KNOB-EATING F—"

"I'M TRYING TO SLEEP. DON'T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE!" The bellowing interruption, that Nick knew to who it belonged, managed to get the kudu to shut up, and he could see the hesitation in his eyes and body. He knew that she had done something to them beforehand and even when he asked about it, they didn't want to tell him. Figures. He knew from the roommates that she usually came home before dark. But now, now she was late, which meant that she had probably gotten into trouble, as she hadn't picked up his call nor returned it.

Plus, she sounded not like herself, so he sat up and uttered in a low tone, "I have to go check on my favourite bunny. Thanks for the chat guys!" He headed towards the table but saw the death glare Bucky was sending him, which made him to halt nervously and ears to slightly drop.

"Not a word to anyone, fox," Bucky warned with enmity and a finger pointed towards him.

"About what?" Nick played along and faked confusion, while sending a wink, and receiving only an unamused huff from him. Thus he grabbed the box of pizza that he had brought along and took his leave by giving both roommates a lazy salute just before exiting the room. He got in front of Judy's worn door and knocked gently. A smug smirk appeared during his wait, thinking that an angry bunny was going to open shortly after and be happily surprised. But there was no reply nor opening of such said door, which was strange, so he repeated the motion but this time harder.

"Leave me alone!" shouted the doe very weakly from inside, which made Nick worry, and instinctively without thinking, he tried to open door and surprisingly it did. Deliberating that in her rush she had forgotten to lock it, he concluded that probably there was nothing to worry about. Stress was stress after all.

As he entered, he saw her sprawled police blues which were hanging off the chair with her other belongings scattered onto the table. That wasn't like her at all. Now that made him concerned even more.

"Who is it! How did you get in?!" panicked the doe frailly, like she was hanging just by a thread, and he could see with his night vision her half-opened eyes that were searching for him. But the darkness of the room and the corridor was obscuring him very well. Only his feet were visible from the moonlight that was peeking through the stained window. She looked frightened but he couldn't see any other details yet. Knowing that he had to announce himself and seeing the look of primal fear in her managed to squeeze his heart painfully.

"Hey, Fluff. It's me, Nick," he responded apologetically and saw her wariness to dissipate as well as detect a whimper escape her throat, which made his ears point towards her.

"Ugh… come in. The switch is on your right," she breathed out from relief and he did as he was hinted. But after switching the light on, it didn't seem that much had changed but at least now, now she could see him. He looked at her again but this time, this time he could recognize the details as the colors were visible under the weak yellow light. He could see her swollen cheek, which's dark purple color was easy to spot under her silver fur. The sight made him google at her stupidly and quickly to dash towards her, putting the carton box on the table and closing the distance between them in a matter of seconds.

"What the h—what happened?" he insisted with worry and saw the presence of shame on the doe's face, thus getting his eyebrows to go up in confusion.

"I didn't listen to you and… I couldn't stay idle, Nick. I couldn't even when I knew what will happen…" The sound of some babbling came from behind the wall, probably from the neighbours' TV. Nick could register that the doe, who seemed extremely drained, was avoiding to look at him, and he knew that she needed rest as well as something else, which after their adventures he wasn't against anymore.

"But who did this to you and why?" he entreated gently and sat on her bed. When he did that, at last she shined her glistering amethysts at him, eyes that were moist and filled with strain, it was so much that he could feel it radiating from her. It was heartwretching, it was awful.

"I… I detained a bear and—they told me to go… he told me—I was supposed to go get the car. But then I saw him… Duke. He was beating the detainee—the mammal was on the ground with cuffs!" she snarled the last part soundly and clenched her fists but immediately whimpered from pain and Nick noticed that she touched her right wrist and contemplated that it was injured as well. "I hesitated but…"-she began touching her eyes and he could see that tears were starting to form-"I rushed… and hit him as hard as I could. But I—his partner. I forgot about him and he—he cuffed me... I thought they—that I was going to die there… I tried to—but I couldn't defend myself without paws—Duke hit me... I don't—I can't remember anything after that, Nick…" She looked away and started sobbing into her blanket. "I wanted to follow what you told me but… but… I couldn't because I'm—I'm just a du—"

She couldn't finish because Nick pulled the blanket down, climbed onto the bed, got to her side, and hugged her feverously, putting his head over hers. She was in a lot of dissonance. There was that part of her that knew that what she had done was right, and the other that doubted her choice. Her suffering was touching him as well, seeing the doe in such a state, a state that was similar but worse when they were in the van.

He sat and put both his legs around her. He entangled his paws around her neck; pulled her towards him, positioning her in between his thighs; and pulled the blanket over her. His arm snaked underneath her neck and reached the small of her back, while the other cupped her side. He felt her readjust herself, while in his grasp, grab his shirt with both paws, and she was now glimmering at him with teary eyes.

They both mooned into each other without blinking or breathing. Nick began caressing her with his pads and claws slowly and could feel his heart flutter. But it was short-lived, as he felt a strong hug on the middle region of his body, just slightly above the ribs, accompanied by a few sobs from the doe.

Nick oofed from surprise and snuggled her closer to him. "You did the right thing Ca—Judy..."-he looked away for a second-"don't try to blame yourself for anything, okay?" he comforted and felt her move her forehead up and down, against his silk shirt, as well as dampness that was starting to form. With the paw that was on the small of her back, he began to gently massage the tense area, to which she purred and rubbed her cheek in his dampening-shirt, but she quickly whimpered from pain and withdrew herself away from him, well as much as he allowed her to do so. There was small distance between them, and he could see her lightly touching her damaged cheek, while he scrutinized her curiously and received a quick glance from the doe.

"I'm a mess…" she mumbled and tried to get away from him but he didn't let her do so. "Nick, don't… My fur smells as well jus—" she was shushed by the vulpine, and he reached into his pocket and got a small tube, while holding her in his grasp because he was still feeling resistance from her part, but it was weakening with every breath.

And it seemed that her resolve to do so was diminishing. She repositioned herself and leaned with her back into him and rested her head against his chest with a light exhale, her tension starting to drain away from her troubled body.

He put on some gel on his fingers and rested his other paw on her stomach, which got her to pull back from the touch subconsciously. He moved his fingers towards her cheek but that was when she opened her eyes and the squirming began. She looked from below at him, with a scowl of determination, and argued defiantly, "I can do that myself, Nick!"

But that didn't break the vulpine's resolve. Not at all as he smirked and retorted, "You can? Thanks for telling me." He tried again and it seemed that the bunny didn't have the energy nor will to resist anymore, thus he began spreading the medicine onto her swollen bump, but retracting his claws before that, so he wouldn't poke her accidently. She inhaled sharply from pain but then relaxed as he continued to nurture her, and he could perceive her tightened muscles on her abdominal to relax at last. He was very amazed at the density he felt.

 _How much did you have to go through…_ He continued to spread the medicine onto the bruise in silence and decided to do something else as well, something that he didn't know how she would react to but it wouldn't hurt to try. Well it wouldn't if she didn't hit him in his left-recently-damaged eye of course. He moved his right paw up towards her neck, grazing a line through the middle of her chest with his claw.

He felt her delightful shiver as well as a light hum as he finally reached his destination, her silvered-neck fur. Slowly, he cupped her throat, but couldn't put his whole paw because her neck was smaller, and began scratching it with his pointy obsidian claws, thus making her to squirm gigglingly from the sensation he was creating. What made his mouth to open slightly from surprise was when she moved her head up and exposed her whole throat to his deadly but pampering claws.

Having finished spreading the gel, he moved his sticky finger away from her syrupy cheek, which's fur was smeared all around the swelling. Seeing that she was still entranced by his gentle scratching made his heart to wobble, and he wanted to stay silent and continue but the nagging part of him resurfaced as well as the knowledge that she needed to rest, so he teased, "You are enjoying this more than me."

But nothing happened, no response, only her lightly pushing herself against his caresses. So he withdrew his spoiling paw and put it onto her shoulder, embracing her in that way, which quickly earned him a very adorable whine that made him snort amusingly, as she drilled at him with a small scowl, seemingly wanting for him to continue. But he had other ideas in mind.

"Anywhere else?" he persisted and saw that she looked at her right wrist as well as hear her yawn exhaustingly. He grabbed her arm; pulled it close to her; and with his paw, that he had put a smaller amount of gel, started to spread it across her wrist, her wrist that had taken a hell of a hit.

"Nick… Do you think that I— that I am a good cop?" she whispered despodently and that made him stop for a second, trying to understand the strange question that just came up from nothing. When he realized why she had asked him that, he placed his head on top of hers but not putting all his weight, knowing that even if she was a tough bunny, she wasn't in top condition right now.

"Do I think that you are a good cop? Yes. Yes, I do"-he felt her squirm weakly underneath him-"if only there were more mammals like you out there… huh…" he cooed and felt her soft tail to wiggle against his underbelly, which would've been okay if he didn't feel attraction towards her, therefor that managed to start off a reaction, a reaction he didn't have control over, but thanks to the Blueberry Lord, her tail stopped and his over-enthusiasm died down and returned to the cave it was trying to sprung out from, which made him gulp from relief, as he didn't want anything like that to happen at that very moment, not at all.

"I don't…" he heard her lament and let go off her paw as he had finished. The doubting of herself was clearly visible but there really wasn't much he could do but be there for her.

"What do y—" he felt her grab his muzzle and stopped mid-sentence, which made him puzzled from her move but it didn't take long for him to understand.

"Don't worry. I'll manage. Thank you for being here," she reassured and yawned again, let go of his muzzle, grabbed his paw and put it near her neck. That made him to snicker as he resumed the scratching that made the doe to huddle her shoulders close to herself as well as nestle her head further into his puffed chest that was underneath his wrinkled shirt. This was strange to Nick, very strange if he was to be honest to himself. He wouldn't have ever done this if she hadn't jumped him in the van and showed him trust as well as affection, affection he actually liked after he thought about it. It wasn't that he didn't like it back then, it just managed to get him a bit too excited like it did when her tail tried to taunt him just moments ago.

He knew that he should be going, as the time was late and he wanted to manage to at least catch the last bus, not liking the idea of calling a cab at all. Thus, while still scratching her fluffy neck and receiving purrs of delightment from the doe, he coaxed, "Any other bruises you got there, Miss trouble-maker?" He didn't receive any answer for his snarky comment but observed her to bend her left leg and pull up her lower leg of her blue-checked pajamas, with the sight getting him to gawk.

It was a medium-sized bump that was situated below the middle of her shin with a shade of blue. "What's this from now?" he rebuked, and very surprisingly, he actually heard her snicker and then laugh but it didn't last long as she gasped painfully again.

"That's from Duke." Nick stopped pampering her sensitive neck and snarled from anger, the visible abuse on her body starting to take its toll on his self-calm, and his tail went across her stomach, between her leg protectively and instinctively. He felt Judy grab his bushy tail and start to caress it as well as hear her to giggle vibrantly. "Don't worry Nick. That's from hitting him in the throat. I wanted it to be only in the teeth… but I guess I strayed a bit"-he heard her to chortle-"you should have seen him when he tried to threaten me again…"

Nick managed to calm himself down, knowing that at least a bit of justice had been done but the newfound news about the threat made him stay on edge, knowing from experience that mammals like Weaselton never made empty threats. Never. His heart, that wasn't calm at all, started beating harder and it actually became agonizing. It seemed that the doe sensed his agitation it as well. "Nick… calm down. There is nothing to worry about. I still have my job and I'm not afraid of him."

Her words pulled him back to reality, and he sighed remorsefully, put more gel on two of his fingers and reached for her bruise, a bruise that was made from an impact… to the throat. _How is he even alive?_ He began spreading the gel onto the awful bump, which was accompanied by another painful whimper from her part, and her ears tried to go up but only hit his sides of his mouth with an audible flop, but she relaxed after a few moments into him as the scratching he hadn't stopped giving her stifled the pain. That got her to purr gleefully and melt into him. He knew that he needed to tell her, to warn her, so he did. "You should be," he whispered seriously from the top of her head.

"Huh?" was her only perplexed reply.

"You should be afraid of him. He isn't like normal mammals." He heard her scoff and she moved his tail away from her.

"So I should tremble in fear? Why?" she rebuked displeasureably and he managed to notice her mood swing quickly just from her tone.

"I di— No, Fluff. You must be on alert at all times. That's what I meant… And you said you still got your job? Did they try to frame you?"

There was some silence and then she answered, "Yes but… it was rather strange…" she trailed off with another yawn, and he knew that he should go very soon, but what she just told him managed to get his fur to stand up, as a few scenarios flashed through his imagination and he became anxious, anxious to the core.

"Fl— Judy. I want you to promise me something," he more like insisted vigorously and awaited for a response, which came after several moments of angry breathing.

"Depends," she returned grumpily and he would've chuckled, the cuteness being immeasurable even when she was mad, if the situation wasn't serious.

"I want you to stay away from Thane and Duke. Whatever order you get. You stay away from them. At all costs!" Nick restated with tenacity and felt her try to move her head but he kept his muzzle on it, and glided his pampering paw across her neck, not giving her the ability to move. She resisted weakly but surrendered with a low huff and relaxed into his soft hold. Because his arm was hugging her jugular, he could sense her healthy heartbeat clearly but then came a light vibration, followed by a single word that escaped her small mouth.

"Why?" was her monotone reply.

"Because if you don't. I don't think I'll ever hear from you or see you ever again," he answered cheerlessly and after a few seconds felt her heartbeat that was strong and fast, to become a bit too fast, and knew that she had realized what had been said. He looked at the bruise and could see that he was finished, so he grabbed the leg of her checked pajamas and pulled it down with his clean fingers. He then grabbed both her shoulders, while she sat motionless, and pushed her gently, trying to move her towards her original spot she was in, when he entered her humble apartment.

She shook her head understandingly and crawled towards her destination, with her toned rear facing him, which managed to feverishly stir his carnal desires, desires that made him wonder what was under that cloth, the view being quite tempting but he bit his tongue in order to stop thinking about it, even as the imagination was running wild and unchecked.

She sat on her rump, while Nick passed her the blanket with a nervous smirk, trying to tuck her in but she wasn't letting him for some unknown reason, making his eyebrows go up. He could see the hesitation in her beautiful eyes, eyes that looked exhausted and bloodshot but still held that fire in them. She gaped at him but closed it as fast as it had opened, and started to look around the small room, making Nick to ask at last, "What is it, Fluff?"

She unconfidently settled her eyes on him again, still undetermined, but at last, she stammered out, "C-could you… uhm… could you stay with me… for the night?"

Nick was dazed from the request as well as baffled. He wanted to say yes, he did, but then again, he couldn't. "I… I can't," he answered remorsefully and saw her expression turn gloomy.

"Why? Am I so repulsing," she shot instantly, still sitting but now with crossed arms as well, while looking at him with incredible scorn.

"Wai— what? No-no!"-he reassured hastily-"I've got something to do before I get home," he explained a bit plainly and got off the bed. She seemed satisfied with the answer and scorn was replaced by expectation.

"Could you stay till I fall asleep then?" she more like pleaded, with her meaty-erect ears, and he could see the suspense in her purple eyes, which finally made him sigh in defeat.

"How am I supposed to leave without waking you to lock the door then?"

But he didn't even have to wait, she was ready to answer. "Take my spare key!" was the jovial quick response, and he could see that she was cornering him, and that he couldn't get out of this situation without being harsh, which wasn't an option after the events that she had gone through. He licked his nose and exhaled slowly, looking at her with dissatisfaction at what she was doing. "Please?" she cooed and he just couldn't take it anymore, thus his surrender became known.

"Sly bunnies," he mumbled but apparently she caught it and giggled. "Where is that key?" he dragged out, and she pointed towards her drawer, thus he went towards it and turned around, waiting for her to tell him which compartment as there wasn't a key on top of the drawer itself.

"The one on the bottom," The cunning eyeball he was receiving as well as the slight smile made him wonder what was going on, so he just rolled his eyes, not knowing why she was being as such, reached for the handle, and pulled the divider swiftly, but what he saw made his eyebrows to huddle together in confusion. He was looking at her underwear, more specifically: her pure black trunks and black trunks with carrots scattered all around. He managed to stop gawking when he registered adorable laughter from the bed and turned to look at the doe that was holding her paws in front of her mouth. She stopped shortly after a whimper as she wasn't in her best condition.

"You serious, Fluff"-he looked at her with an unamused expression-"carrots?" he teased and smirked madly, while pondering viciously how she was not getting bashful. Having their exchanges and closeness was one thing but going through belongings such as underwear was something he hadn't expected from the doe as a joke. Not at all if he was to be truthful to himself.

"Yes," she answered confidently and motioned with her paw towards the divider. "Come on! It's on the left corner closer to you,"

He looked at that corner but couldn't see anything, just her black trunks, which were starting to make thoughts to crawl around his brain if she was in ones or not at this moment, if she was with the ones with carrots or the ones without. But now was not the time, thus he grumbled, "I don't see it," and again turned to look at her, therefor saw her straight-face.

"Underneath, silly!" His eyes widened at what she wanted him to do. _Okay… this is getting strange._ He wasn't a shy mammal or easily agitated but the bunny was somehow getting him to feel as such. He knew the reason, he knew it very well and hated it very much as it wasn't letting him make progress, progress that had to happen but couldn't because of that barrier. He saw her to hit the blanket with a slap, and huff in annoyance.

"Fine. If you are so scared to go under some pants. Then I'll do it," she asserted and began going out of the bed but he was faster and got the key out of the drawer, pushing it closed afterwards in a matter of seconds. When he moved his gaze back at her, he noticed her small cunning smirk and knew that everything was a part of her plan, which got him to snicker, get to the light switch, turn off the light, go towards her table, where he found her phone, and take it as well.

Taking the chair that was close to the desk, he carried it close to the bed and radiator, put it with its back facing the bed, and sat with his chest hugging its backside. The tod was very close to her, and he powered the phone's screen on, thinking of having some fun on her behalf, maybe even see something that only his imagination was contributing to. _I wonder if I've missed something…_ But his expectations were met by a crushing reality, a password, which he didn't remember being there. That got him to smile slightly and respectfully to say, "You learn fast,"

"Uhm?" was her sleepy response and she opened her tired eyes.

"Put an alarm for tomorrow. You don't want to oversleep." He threw the phone next to her, which landed softly exactly on the pillow near her head. She grabbed it sluggishly and started typing her password. Nick looked through the old stained window and could see that it had become quite dark, and that he was running out of time if he was to get home normally. He pondered on why things had to be so complicated, so discouraging, so revolting, so problematic.

Problems that he had solved by tearing himself from society to a certain extent. That worked for him and could work for her. But she wasn't one to back off so easily, but if she didn't, death was pretty clear as a future. He kept his gaze at the dark-outside, deep in thought, until he heard an ahem, and turned around to look at its originator. "Done?" She extended her paw with her phone in it towards him, and he grabbed it gently, put it onto her desk, and turned his gaze back at her with his head onto the wobbly chair for support.

"Hey," Judy uttered lazily, while hugging the sheet close to her chin, and looking at the red vulpine strangely.

Nick snorted playfully and slightly smiled. "Hey to you too?" He saw hesitation for a second as her peepers moved around the room, until she fixated them on him. He swore her nose twitched but wasn't entirely sure. Could've been his mind just playing tricks on him.

"Why, Nick?" she asked without much context, and that made the tod's ears to go down a bit from confusion.

"Whyyy what?" he returned and waited for a follow up as she yawned again.

"Why hide the real you?" she probed even sluggishly, as it seemed that sleep was overtaking her senses at long last. The question managed to catch Nick off guard, and he was actually at loss of words because when he tried to give his usual answer, something squeezed his throat and didn't let him do so. He actually didn't want to lie to her, he preferred to tell her the truth.

"Only way to protect myself from hurt," he spilled truthfully and slightly scowled, as bad memories resurfaced and began dancing hatefully in his head. They almost made him snarl but then Judy pulled him from the bad place he was beginning to enter.

"But… I could've done the same… Why me?" she pried curiously and he didn't even have to think about it, knowing full well why.

"Because I didn't care," he only said with a smile, which got the doe to narrow her eyebrows together in confusion.

"Huh?"

Nick smoothed the fur on his muzzle down and licked his nose, while his smile was vibrating around the room as well as jumping lively. "I didn't care if you could've. I knew, and I know who you are. You didn't and don't deserve anything that has happened till now. Who cares about me when you are the better mammal…"-he hesitated-"and I've gotten used to it," he added with a smirk that was trying to hide his true feelings.

"What have you gone through…"

Nick smiled sadly and stared at nowhere, wondering what best could sum up his answer. At last, he came up with the best he could, "Nothing good…"

That got the doe to sigh gloomily and start playing with her fingers. "Maybe we aren't that different after all…" Her nose twitched a few times, and he could see her eyes beginning to glister as she forced them shut, probably not wanting to let her emotions take their course. He saw her to bite her lip, with half-opened eyes, and heard her start sleepily, "Nick… I…. like you… very much… Nick…"-he wasn't surprised at all as she had shown him all that through her actions-"Do… you… like me?" she pressed and waited for an answer but he could see that she was barely conscious, the fatigue having taken its toll on her body and mind. And for that, the question didn't sound as if it had another meaning.

"Of course I do, Fluff," he returned without hesitation but saw her move her head in denial very slowly.

"No… not like… not like…. that…" she corrected herself weakly as her eyes finally closed shut gently. She was now in the realm of rest and rejuvenation, which made Nick to smile sadly and sigh, while mooning at her. He couldn't understand how such a pure mammal had to go through so much crap, so much pain. And this was just the beginning, the first steps.

Her words had struck deep within him, as she had confirmed his doubts, and now he knew with certainty what her position was, yet he couldn't. He just couldn't do that to her. She didn't need more pain in her life, she had enough. He stared at the asleep grey doe for some more time, liking to look at her without the manifested stress, until he decided that it was time to go, so he stood up, moved the chair at its rightful place and grabbed the carton box but not before tidying up the place for her and even finding her uniform that smelled like him.

But something caught his interest, her pristine badge which's face lay on the sturdy desk. He picked it up carefully and brought it close to his head. He eyed the words trust, integrity, and bravery that were engraved onto the goldish surface of the metal, and scoffed sardonically at the irony and put if back from where he took it, but this time with its back on the wooden surface.

Still staring at the object of her accomplishment, which she had told him she had craved for most her life, got his fingers to start moving around nervously, until he turned around and observed the peaceful doe, more importantly her bruised cheek. _And for what? For this?!_

He turned around harshly, so fast that his tail was still in view when he did so, got to the door and opened it slowly, not wanting to wake her up. And just before exiting, he turned to look at her again, as he felt conflict to rage inside of him, conflict that made his heart to clench harder and at last, he lamented, "I do. But you deserve someone better."

After he closed and locked the door quietly, he went towards the neighbours and knocked. He could hear the semi-loud TV and steps after a few moments. The door opened and he was met by Pronk who swiftly hissed, "What?"

"Could you give this to Judy tomorrow at 6AM?" Nick pleaded with a sad smile and pushed the carton box of pizza towards the kudu, who at first seemed unwilling, but at last rolled his eyes, took it and closed the door, not giving the tod an opportunity to even say goodbye. "Thanks! And could you tune it down please? She is sleeping," Nick added strongly but didn't receive a response, so he sighed disapprovingly and headed towards the exit, while thinking deeply, deeply about his current situation, a situation he didn't know how to react to.

The Grand Pangolin Arms was filled with the different snores of the mammals living there as well as wind that was echoing through the corridors very ghastly. Nick got to the reception floor that was dark and abandoned, and he could see the old and degrading wood of the reception desk as well as the peeling walls, and he couldn't understand how she even had the courage to live in there, the place being easy to enter without any witnesses. She was a cop but that didn't mean she was invincible, and with the current events that had happened to her, she could be in a lot of danger but his thoughts were interrupted by a yell that came from up the stairs he came down from.

"LOWER THE VOLUME YOU MEAT-EATING FREAK!" Something metallic hit the floor above and rolled around.

"SHUT UP…"

Nick snorted amusingly and exited the building. The street lights were illuminating the surroundings and he just stared at them, thinking heavily and feeling frustrated. He eyed the cars that were parked close to the sidewalk on both sides as they weren't many. But from the different-sized vehicles, one specifically grabbed his attention, one that he could remember very well.

It was that same black sedan, with fully tinted windows, from when he and Judy witnessed the murder. He felt the tingle of dread inside of him because he was realizing what this meant, what it always meant. His heart became an unstable construct, and he didn't register that he was gawping at the carrier of death, until its engine growled and it sped off down the road. Fear's tendrils had overtaken his spine, making him horrified at what would happen soon if nothing was done. He looked back at the flat shamefaced, and for a moment his lips curled into a snarl.

 _I guess I have to do this… It's for the best._ He began walking with an unconfident gait, tail that was sweeping the dusty ground, ears that were flat to his skull, paws in pockets, and downcast look. He looked despondent, he didn't look himself, he had something in mind that was eating him from the inside, something that would turn prejudice into truth, something that he had done in the past but in a different way.

But hesitation was now absent in his conscious because of what he had grasped. Hesitation being just a gnawing thought, an obstruction, an annoying hindrance, a despondent indignation.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

\- **Twitter:** _InletReal_

\- **Tumblr:** _inlet-oc_

\- **Youtube:** _Inlet_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_

\- **MisterSmail's AO3 Page:** _Mister_Smail_

\- **MisterSmail's FanFiction Page:** _Mister Smail_


	13. Happytown

**Chapter Thirteen**

 **Happytown**

Surface of azure, surface uneven and rather alive, it'd bobble up and down in a rhythm of swish, undisturbed and influential until it'd meet the barrier of moss and riddles of corals glued. Every crash of wave would rumble like soothing wind of manifest that'd take its leave and unexpectedly would come back again, again and again.

The distance was clear and the unseen end could be seen in the great gap where the lively liquid glistered teary in gratefulness to the still-warm autumn smile that was bathing the land in life. There was also the part of green and grey in that same far away sight that slept and stretched by the playful blue, the province of Bunnyburrow with the oceanic railway transportation passage standing tall in the middle as it made connection between civilizations. An exemplary feat of engineering and architecture that mammals of this great country gave way to existence.

The sky ached healthily in cobalt and the air carried the rich scent of salt and dampness with the occasional sounds of pretentious seagulls noisying about. Ships of different sizes and uses bounced gently over the reflecting deepness, while some were partially underneath it with rusty frames and long-forgotten names, yet not entirely forgotten like those on the bottom unclear where the mucky earth was swallowing them slow and sure. Lots of waste had gathered round like hungry crowds of starvation around the mossy walls of concrete tall of the harbor, where long ropes dangled in thick brown and shades of wear that time had given in its fair influential share.

There, on the edge of the tall concrete of discolor, sat a red-furred mammal in a white button-up shirt, while his black coat, in harmony with his trousers, hanged on his sides so as to get more heat to easily flee his lively body. His paws, with claws black but not so long, held half a recently-baked bread from which he'd peel small pieces that'd leave crumbs to separate in unwillingness to freedom, while he'd throw the chunks on the wooden quay of moldiness of the harbor below, where sailors and mammals were making it crunch and squeak, while seagulls squarked of mass, battled in rattle with each other for the small amounts of tastiness fallen at the expense of the mammals around who bustled busily without any care about the fox above, at least now showing it.

Yet, that was the exact reason why Nick was enjoying himself so much as there were mammals there that had done him wrong and thorning them right now, even if rather insignificant, was aiding in the bubbling of his already vibrant mood. Especially as he could see the look of indignation on the old walrus's face, with moldy wears, who was glaring at him through misty blue battered by the flow of time. The tarpaulin the old mammal was hiding underneath and the slippery planks gave way to Nick's imagination of him sliding and finally breaking his neck as the years lived surely were too much, why did he have to suffer more? Yet… the old walrus would escape him then too easily, who would Nick annoy then? This mammal gave way to the best of reactions!

Nick just couldn't miss the opportunity to throw more oil into the fire, thus his tidy maw opened slightly into his foxy grin, and with a wagging tail of bushlessness, he waved at the old sack of expired meat in between another throw of bread that was bigger than all the previous to which the old sea mammal muttered a definite curse and broke his waned gaze of failure that fed Nick a sleazy load of pride of his achievement. There was this saying about respecting your elders… but he didn't know his elders and all the rest were just fussy prejudiced assholes. Of course not all of them, there were gentle and friendly ones but the bad overpowered the good in numbers. How could he respect someone who didn't respect him? Pft, they could go choke on a fish!

Happytown. Even in its filthy state and abundance of unfriendly individuals of poverty it somehow felt right, it felt somehow attractive in a rather twisted way, it felt home. The high crime rates, lack of adequate jobs, not enough education or healthy environments, all of that was easily brushed off as normal and usual for this place at the edge of the giant metropolis of Zootopia. Here you could do whatever you wanted, police rarely would come as mammals would just keep to themselves as trouble sought only those that sought it in turn. Those who snitched were seen worse than the criminals themselves.

Still that didn't mean surprises never caught up to him as he'd hear stories about cities underneath the ground, disfigured monsters that were once mammals, pits with ancient beings and other far-fetched stories of fiction. Of course most were just urban legends that fueled the fires of fear and wonder, the belief in the supernatural and extraordinary. Yet not all seemed to be myth, he had personally met mammals who'd talk about such a place. A place of dark, a place of cold, a place of unimaginable danger. Rarely would any of them deviate in changes of descriptions that'd be painted in the overall end, they'd speak poorly and would lack structure of grammar, which in turn lessened the doubt even more within his mind…

Yet, there were parts that would make his guts to tighten in disgust of strain, when he'd hear about mammals who preferred the taste of flesh. Cannibals, born from the necessity of survival and having persisted to this day, even when the need of such a way was greatly unnecessary. Rarely something like this would happen in this place as mammals weren't keen on such disgusting filth living amidst them, alas, cases of such brutalities had happened over the years but they were always covered up and kicked away like unwanted garbage. Mammalia didn't want the world to know that the most prosperous country worldwide had such 4th world problems, they were going to become a laughingstock, mocked and even called out. Their influence hence diminished…

It seemed that the criminals weren't those committing the atrocities here and around, it were those who kept them behind closed doors and allowed them to continue to repeat and repeat. Nick wasn't a hypocrite by thinking as such, he knew he was one of those mammals who'd rather stay in the dirt than lose his life just because he'd think he could make a difference to the already established world order that had taken decades of formations, tons of blood, hundreds of thousands of graves, unfathomable strings of grief and misery… No, he liked the happiness he had and if preserving it meant being the fox society thought he was, he was going to fight for it tooth and claw.

A big piece of him wanted to believe about the parts of such hidden cities existing because they sounded so big and different which in turn gave push to curiosity that his young self still harbored in energies unmeasured. The shininess of Zootopia and its diversity and colors had held the wonder for some time but even so to him, where he lived had imprinted itself onto his brain in a way to appreciate and feel attraction towards the ruins and chaotic design. The old wooden houses, the unplastered bricked walls and graveled off-roads, the wild parks and fields… it all equaled to some sort of freedom… dangerous… limitless… freedom…

That was why this unique place under the world had him interested so much, it gave the impression to carry so much more possibilities than this area could even give way to his fantasies, ways for a better life and an expunge from where he was and towards a place where he'd have the possibility of more power and control. Seeing groups and organizations illicit was what thrusted him to want and create something alike, to have somewhat a family that would accept him for who he was… Today was the step towards that future that he believed to be inevitable and calcified to invulnerability.

But the big difference of his dream and path, the major change that was to be made was that the ways of illegality were going to be a nag of the past. There was no need to muddle into the dangerous deposits where greed ruled and betrayal was as occasional as the leakage of sewage in Happytown. It was so simple, he had realized legal ways for him to do what they were doing but in such an angle that the law deemed it _honorable_ , even if that was laughable and rather disrespectful to the word itself.

All it'd take was knowledge about what was allowed, all he needed was to know what could be exploited and brought forth in use of lackful contrition that would fade away slowly in the memory of yesterday, a decaying feeling of once upon a time, a point in time of warning that'd whisper advice for mistakes to not be repeated. All it was going to take was a step forward, a step into the light and the progressive, a step that had been alluding him for so much time due to his ignorance and scarcity of experience his meek years carried.

 _Today is the day…_

His emerald eyes narrowed into the depths of his memory as he wondered if something was wrong and amiss to which his peepers glanced at the sun, blazing above, at a spot close to the time of mid-day, which got his unburdened paw to tap clawly and to reach for his opened coat but then his nose caught a certain scent, one of great familiarity but in mingle of something fruity, yet time ran out for contemplations as the fabric of something and the weight off another glued to his back and tail, while pressure moved in front his throat and pulled back in par with his loss of breath.

He saw sleeves of dark-blue and fur of grey but the sheer panic that someone wanted to harm him got his claws to dig into the arms of squeeze and his legs to thrash in the air with futility. The bread had fallen to his side and he wasn't seeing any way out but to push his weight forward and into the thirsty sea, even if that'd ruin the prospects of today. His life was deemed more important that an opportunity that could be harvested again in time.

But then it hit him, his nose pulled in hard again and in between the mingled scents of perfume he caught those motes again, earthly fox musk that he had known since the early years of his time. It got him to cease everything with a downwards frown of annoyance.

"Asshole…" The struggle around his throat subsided slowly but instead of the weight on his back of removing, legs with the same grey fur surrounded him in the same presence as those sleeves, dark-blue. A breath hotter than the air around him blew next to his cheek, and a muzzle of dark red and grey came forward into view with amber looking at him through an angle, while those same paws held the same position but now they resembled a… hug.

"Caught ya on, N!" came the gentle voice of the fox whose longer muzzle held that vibrant smile which got Nick's bubbling infuriation to step down in a rolling motion, while the intimate hold he was caught in didn't even bother him one bit, yet he felt some of his pride broken in being seized so easily off guard. It must've been the fact that his friend's beige claws were always short and dull, they made him so noiseless on the rocky sidewalks and paths. It wasn't as if he himself couldn't be as such but he couldn't get away with the claws on his legs sometimes tapping the surface and giving him off.

"Didn't even do it right…" Nick muttered under his breath with a snort coming his side where dark red and grey leaned onto his shoulder and moved closer to his collar, rumpling his silky coat a bit. The closeness was surely appreciated in some way he couldn't put a word upon and that got his mind to race with speeds that lacked understanding, speeds that burst instantly through the network of his neurons, yet there the only thing he was getting close to was this feeling of warmth and unwant to get away from this close hold.

"It's not like I wanted to… Just… a surprise?" the young tod said hesitantly with traces of regret of what he had done to which Nick smiled in response as he knew that Tristan's heart was so big, he could never keep up a ruse for more than necessary, which was good for Nick but at the same time, he wanted his friend to take charge of himself and be able to overcome anything. It didn't matter that then he'd be the one paying the prices of the lessons give, his friend moving on and getting stronger was a goal unvoiced, a goal that Nick shared.

"Ugh, stop getting flustered, Tris," he dusted off his paw with a flick into the air and put it over the dark red on Tristan's muzzle to which the nervous tod relaxed in an exhale, "You seem ready?" Nick asked, but as he moved, Tristan's long whiskers of white poked his nose to which Nick sneezed and narrowed his eyes on the long hairs with lack of trust. Still, he couldn't deny the fact they looked perfectly long and in symmetry, yet he could never let his own ones grow as they just betrayed too much of emotion and expression. That, that was a deal breaker even if it gave off more maturity and wisdom.

"Yea… got what you asked me of," one of his paws disengaged with slight reluctance and pulled a black briefcase towards the edge and into Nick's satisfaction, "You think… it'll work out?" Tristan asked with wobbly angst which got Nick's ears to flick dangerously in surprise, while he could feel the hug around himself increase by a slight note, which was showing off the need for reassurance that his silver tongue could bring forth even if the pessimist inside him was against him telling such a white lie of uncertainty and unconditioned possibilities.

"Hey, you're the one supposed to have the hope!" Nick blurted out with his present emotions to which Tristan's eyes widened and then he plopped his muzzle onto Nick's shoulder as a long exhale came about, while his whiskers twitched up and down.

"I do… it's… just nervous and all," Tristan whispered with eyes aimed elsewhere and snuggled his muzzle even closer to Nick's neck which in turn got him to feel the motes of nervousness as well, thus an awkward silence crashed around them as they just stood close to each other, breathing in one another's presence. He had the right to feel as such, even if nothing shady was put in play, there was always the chance of something going south and that was unacceptable as he himself had organized this exchange. Responsibility.

Reassurance… that was what he could give his friend, reassurance and comfort, even if that played a bit outside his own gardens of convenience he had built around. Thus Nick let him stay as he was and even caressed the underside of his muzzle of grey to which the tod tugged lips of smile and glanced in chrome at Nick with a sort of gaze that was trying to step from warmth appreciated and into sultriness which wasn't what Nick had in mind to achieve, yet a snort of grain amusement pursed his own lips. Nothing was said for some moments until Tristan's whitish-long whiskers twitched again after the calm.

"Hey… why's he glaring at us?" Tristan asked without gesturing anywhere, just looking down at the quay to which it didn't take Nick much to figure out whom it was being talked about, after all, that deep and hateful glare could be easily seen from kilometres away, "Is it because…" Tristan trailed off and slowly began moving his head away from the side of Nick's neck but Nick put a paw on the side of Tristan's muzzle and pushed back because he wanted to infuriate the old prejudiced dickhead, even if he wasn't realizing at that very moment what that meant to his friend.

"Cuz he's an old spiteful fart. Doubt he likes himself even. Don't tell me he's getting to you?" At the question asked, Tristan shuffled with distress and that was the answer that was needed, yet Nick kept his mouth shut and just waited to see if contradictions would come.

"Wh— I just… no… no he isn't." Through the fruity scent, Nick now even detected the distress easily with his nose of vision to which he sighed heavily and tugged onto the sleeves of Tristan's coat, which earned him no reaction at first but after a moment the tod moved away slowly with lowered ears and stood up behind Nick. He knew what his friend needed as Tristan wasn't like him and his heart was easily hurt by even those whom he even didn't know, which would always get Nick's own in turn and hurt him in par. The only thing they had to do was to not show that those malicious bastards were getting to them but Tristan had a problem integrating it, he just couldn't swallow it whole.

Nick massaged the gap between his eyebrows and stood up from the edge of discoloured steel which was encased on the rim of the wall, his bushless tail swapped behind him few times while his paws cleaned the pieces of rust around his pants where he had sat, his paws pulled onto the lapels of his coat as to get it in place and with a motion that rolled him around the balls of his feet, his green gaze met the full sight of his slightly crestfallen friend, who managed to widen his jades and his mind to stop working for some moments of befuddlement.

In front of him, fresh as freshness could get, stood a fully formal fox, in a dark-blue coat and trousers that were hugging the dark-red tod's lean frame perfectly with an indigo tie nestled in between around the light-blue collar of his shirt underneath, while the greyness of his groomed fur was sticking out the buttoned top from around his neck that was narrower than what was normal for foxes.

Nick was always observant to details and was quick to eat all of them that Tristan had to offer, especially the barely visible worn watch on his right wrist that had a frame of silver and dark brown straps. He wasn't going to beat around the bush in his mind, Tristan looked incredibly acute and even charming in par with his long face and longer muzzle with those point whiskers. He'd definitely fit for a mammal of class and the only thing he lacked was confidence and resources but who needed that when one could use their tongue to conjure such, not in a way that some may think of tho.

"Something wrong?" Tristan asked through a lowered head as if Nick's staring was interpreted like dissatisfaction to which he was quick to break off his trance of stupor and to chuckle in delight. Something definitely was wrong, as he subtly bit his lip and felt this tightness inside his lungs that he blamed on the suffocating vapor of the sea behind him.

"You took my advice too far!" the tod's ears went lower and his head sank into his shoulders to which Nick's heart even prickled, "Where'd you find this even?!" He closed the distance between them and grabbed both sides of his friend who wasn't still understanding that Nick was in total awe rather than in utmost disappointment.

"Aren't new… resized them at som—… I think I know why they weren't expensive but there's no smell! B-but… if they're ba— I can fi—"

"Hey, hey! Stop being a knucklehead," Nick pulled on the blue lapels of Tristan's coat and got his long muzzle to open in great confusion, "You've outdone yourself, outstanding job!" Nick cheered through a beaming smirk that got his friend's head to finally move up in increasing confidence and try to match the height of Nick's but couldn't as it was missing some more centimeters.

"Oh, yes… thanks, I thought that… you didn't like it and... y-yea…" Tristan exhaled sharply and tugged on his collar which got Nick's brow to furrow up and his smirk to evolve into a grin from the inexperience shown before him that he was going to take likeness in correcting.

"Tho… you've done some parts wrong, Tris," the dark-red tod's ambers of focus flung open in concern yet again with paws defensively grabbing one another in front of him, yet no words came out of his mouth but patience for Nick's wisdom to come. But words weren't going to be the only thing coming forth and even if this was going to be interpreted in another way by mammals who could see them, Nick didn't care a rat's ass about any of their opinions. The only opinions he took to heart and mind were those that didn't seek him harm, those that's purpose was to help him and protect him. And only a small pawful were those mammals that could give such in the whole big world, a small atom amidst the giant universe.

"Making deals is about confidence and one of the ways of showing it is through looks," his body moved closer to Tristan's so that his longer muzzle was almost touching Nick's shorter one, while his paws reached for the buttons of Tristan's coat, "I know you're a perfectionist and think that sharpness is that way… but…" two of the blue buttons sneaked through the fabric and the coat opened a view to the rest of his upper half with large amounts of heat escaping and brushing the fur around Nick's auburn paws, "By showing them lack of care for such perfection is a way to put solidity in your confidence that you can't be swayed by someone else's opinion."

The thin black belt around Tristan's narrow hips seemed to be digging into him a bit too much which got emeralds to glance for a moment at chrome with a head motion of disagreement. Nick's belly fluttered at the thought of doing this and the implications it would carry but he wasn't going to lie to himself in trying to imply otherwise that he wasn't enjoying this at a distant primal point of unexplored thoughts. Thus with a hesitating exhale, his paw shot for the rim of Tristan's trouser's top and his black claws dug from behind the tight holder, to which the dark-red tod yelped and tried to pull back in failure.

"And you can't do that when you can't breathe," he tried to pull again on the belt where his fingers were being crushed under but it barely budged so his other paw reached for the space between the loop and buckle and pulled the black leather easily and removed his intruding fingers from the privacy if Tristan's pants, thus losing the warmth to the salty air. He pushed the buckle to the other side and twisted the black towards the tongue in expertise, which got the tie to sever and the squeezing around the hips of his friend to subside but Nick didn't wait and quickly put the belt in a satisfactory hole which wouldn't bring pain to the waist like it previously had been doing.

"I c-could've done that… myself…" Nick fixed the now-disgruntled and tucked end of Tristan's light-blue shirt and reached for the collar, while his knuckles brushed the smooth indigo necktie that he rather liked and his gaze finally fell onto the shy one of his friend who he knew was going to conclusions right now which was understandable but it was just Nick's nature to be a tease and do such mischievousness with everyone, especially mammals close to him for whom he cared for a lot, then it was a priority.

"Oh? And you're telling me now? How impishly of you!" That got Tristan to instantly recoil away and take a step back but Nick grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him back, "I'm playing with you, bro. I don't know what's going through your head of yours… I know there's something you're not telling me but… I won't probe. We've got to focus on this now… right?" Nick more like demanded through a voice that spilled out of friendliness and into great seriousness.

"Right…" Tristan repeated with a reluctant breath that collided against Nick's creamy fur around his neck and both smiled in understanding that lacked the need and efforts of more words, yet the mind was just swimming in speculation of what was on Tristan's mind as his actions of late were so… they were more intimate and sough closeness while in the past such was never the case. There was this difference in his scent that was so familiar and rather, likable to the nose and mind, yet Nick couldn't put a word upon that feeling that was slowly growing in the depths of his stomach, he thought it was a feeling of misplaced paranoia and doubt because of where they were heading to.

"Great! So… where was I before this… _venture_?" Nick's obsidian claw tapped the surface of the rather gentle material but his mind easily found the lost needle in the hay even if that said mind was being drawn back to that scent and closeness that he wasn't making distance from... "By showing lack of care for a perfect look and mix it with the strength of defiant words you can achieve a menacing effect of power… even if it could be just a murky illusion." Nick wanted to see a reaction of approval and awe but the shock was nothing like the characteristics of such, it brought uneasiness to rumble.

"But… I don't want to be menacing!" Tristan blurted out in great restiveness but Nick shushed him as the top button of Tristan's collar fell and exposed the soft fur of his grey neck which overtook the rims of tightness and exposed something greatly unexpected to Nick's confused eyes. A black leather collar, with a golden frame in front and shiny ruby in the middle, stood exactly behind where the button was, as if it was hiding it from danger and keeping it safe. Why was Tristan wearing exactly that? It wasn't just a random jewellery or a cheap fashion token, it was a relic and a prized position Nick knew well, especially to whom it used to belong to.

"This is… your mother's… why ar—" He couldn't finish, his own voice was overtaken by the tod before him in panic, which was nothing like the Tristan he knew. It appeared that Tristan didn't want to talk about why and who and Nick was going to respect it.

"It brings luck! Thought we'll need as much as we can get… I mean… I can take it off if yo—" But as Nick's ears flicked at the words and his eyes scanned Tristan from head to waist, his claws went underneath the knot of the long tie and he gently pulled it out the collar after which his fingers grabbed the long end and aptly undid the knot that was trying to act tough and unmovable, while Tristan looked from above in puzzlement and slight… curious satisfaction?

"Just want to try something…" Nick said under his breath with his pink-longish tongue out which showed off his concentration upon the matter. His paws removed one more button that now showed a part of the tod's upper grey chest and he was going to go for another one when grey paws grabbed his auburn ones in unspoken protest. Nick frowned at the move but after some intent staring between the two tod's, he sighed in defeat and backed up as to see the finality of his ingenious tinkering.

Tristan had slightly slumped himself but Nick made a motion with his claw and the posture was fixed, the incredible sharpness was dulled and was now replaced with a new aura that gave the illusion of power and resourcefulness which was easily translated by the recently-forced lack of care and opened shirt, while the jewellery that he thought was going to be out of place actually seemed to fit perfectly in the scene, it wasn't feminizing Tristan but pulling forth more influence and domination into the picture. It even pulled a reaction that greatly troubled Nick as it was just too inappropriate within the bounds of the relationship between them.

"So?" Tristan asked with paws up which fell and flapped on his thighs to which Nick contemplated for the right words but as no shore was evident for anchor, he gulped the bashfulness and decided against his better judgement.

"If I was a vixen, it's the first room we found… or alley." The comment seemed to have done it and a definite blush overtook the dark-red tod whose paws scratched one another and his mouth tried to formulate a response of failure that didn't lead to anything but silence. Nick took that moment of marvel to realize a fault within himself as well. "Should follow my own advice as well, eh?" His paws reached for his own necktie that had already been loosened and he hastily removed it as well, while leaving more fur exposed than the one on his shy friend whose eyes didn't blink as his paw reached for the gap of his belt which he tugged up.

"Guess we're ready to head out, bro?" Nick was just to reach for the black suitcase when he saw the remaining leftovers of bread on the rusty surface, while the ideas that came got his mind to trickle in trickery and foxiness. After all, karma was such a nasty whore, she'd bite and trash and bash… it was all fair if something… happened.

"He's still looking at as, N," Tristan said in a voice that mirrored a whisper, which still carried evident hurt in the notes that got Nick to feel slight anger in his veins but the idea solidified inside his head as a seagull passed close with wings opened wide as if it were ready to pose levitating in the air in a godly manner. The opportunity made Nick's chest to tickle in a gurgle of chuckle as what was to happen just filled him full of incoming joy. His paw grabbed the piece of bread, which was starting to take the road to rockiness, and with a peep towards the crowd of noisy birds and angry sack of walrus, whose prejudice was even dirtier than the waters around, he jumped in place towards his puzzled friend and held the bread close to Tristan's chest.

"You were good at basketball in school. A clean one? Inside the wooden boat with the battered tarp where the old pile of fishy-expired meat is." Nick pointed with a claw at the old mammal who crossed his fins in the distance, while Tristan narrowed his eyes and his paws ached in hesitation of what to do until he frowned deeply and grabbed the piece of trouble from Nick's paw.

"20 bucks that I'll hit the radio on the table."

"Nah, but do hit that radio." With a side snort and a raised paw behind his back, Tristan threw the remaining piece of nutrition high in the air and unsurprisingly the hungry beasts below saw it as if it was a burning meteorite falling from the sky, to which another insane ruckus blew as they jumped into the breeze and towards the destination that was the poor walrus' boat who now had an expression of great surprise and fear that was sealed when the golden piece of problems bumped into the noisy radio and fell into the boat that was seconds later filled with white, grey and yellow as well as sounds of battle and brawls and yells and crashes.

 _"Fuckin' faggots! I'll stuff'o tails in'o asses y—"_ But his anger-filled voice was now mingled with the distance as Nick and Tristan had both trailed elsewhere in laughter away from the harbour and towards the city but before they were to cross another road, Nick stopped abruptly with the suitcase in paws and whistled lightly at his friend.

"Store the ties," he said absent-mindedly and clicked-open the black rectangle which gave view to a folder with documents and notes and pens that looked rather elegant. Tristan came close to him and Nick handed him the suitcase while his paws grabbed the ties from his coat's pockets and began rolling them appropriately so they wouldn't wrinkle. "The place is somewhere between the border of Downtown and the Rainforest District," at that Tristan's mouth opened but closed in a snap as if he knew that he'd be answered even without starting, "I've got it all covered, don't tie your tail in a knot."

That was when he stored the second long piece of fashion in the case and closed it shut with a satisfying snap and took it by the handle in his paw. But at that moment Tristan's tail wagged forward into view and he embraced it in front of him lovingly. "I'd never do that to you, my love," he cooed and cradled his bushy white-tipped tail which had circular white lines streaking from that tip towards the base, which was surely dyed, as such a pattern was unnatural to the already-established world.

"Still don't understand why you did that to your… _love,_ " Nick pressed with interest and a cockily-curious smirk.

"Because she needed it and now looks better. You can do the same to yours, she'll love it!"

"First of all, it's not a she. It's a tail. And second…" He extended a dramatic pause that kept his friend on his toes in the both senses of the word, while his grin wasn't fading at all. "You're standing in the gutter." That got Tristan to yelp as he jumped in place with pieces of dirt and filth flying around him as he leapt and landed to the sidewalk while dragging his bare-padded feet on the stone slabs as to get any of the disgust off him.

"Damn it, I'll reek now…." But before he could befriend despondency, Nick got to his side and extended a paw around his neck with a pull as to get his attention, which wasn't hard to do with the new closeness and contact, while Nick himself felt rather in the mood to roll out his silver tongue and put it to uses of amusement as well as inquires of action.

"If you've had enough of marvelling yourself for today, let's get to business." His paw pulled on the black collar with a claw which got Tristan to exhale sharply and to try and get his balance back from the leaned position he had been forced by Nick.

"I'm not boast—"

"Ahh, here you go at it again, tck-tck," Nick mocked and received a low growl of warning from his trapped friend who was looking at him through daggerly ambers. Not wanting to receive a nasty reaction from his friend, Nick decided not to further the jokes as his supposed innocent partner wasn't that of such to begin with. With that in mind, he pushed forward and they began moving anew towards the end of the street, while the liveliness of the neighbourhood was filled with sounds of drilling, shouting and overall industrialism which was always active everywhere in Happytown. At least there weren't any gunshots during the day like at night, at least there weren't…

"I was wondering of doing the same around my…" The words got Nick's attention stolen as he strangely looked at his beaming companion who was vastly indecisive in continuation in the described. Where was he thinking of putting more colors… Why was there this heart-squeezing feeling that whispered nothing but trouble? "You know… down there?" For a moment Nick just looked from above through suspiciously-dumb jades but when they saw a small nervous smirk to appear on his companion's lips, his brain shot signals all around his cortex that got him to act within a flash.

"Dude! Why're you telling me this!?" He released the grip quickly and made a safe space between the both of them. He wasn't bashful about such subjects but he really didn't want to talk about such topics with Tristan as he could sometimes lose himself and just go into such details which could make even Nick's cheeks turn red.

"You're overreacting… you have one there. I've seen it an—" Yea he had an auburn shade there but he didn't boast about it or even try to steer a conversation that would lead to such disclosure, while now his friend wanted exactly that, which was starting to get to him on an emotional standpoint with fantasies and curious thoughts which plagued the leftover innocence of his mind that the world hadn't forcibly broke off… yet.

"Why-are-you still talking about this, Tris! Argh!" Nick hissed as his eyes made haste to the other side of the sidewalk where he tried to refocus himself at a group of mammals who were playing cards on a makeshift table from cardboard, with one of the bigger mammals having this large grin of success that was evident of his failure to keep a poker face and use that to his advantage. But then Nick's nose caught a musky and comforting scent which meant that someone was again close to him, someone who wasn't a no one but a someone in specific.

"Ughm… wanted to hear your… thoughts?" Tristan mumbled in embarrassment, yet it was so simple to just catch the curious notes that begged Nick to just humour and talk with him about this, which slowly was chipping on his denial to do so with his eyes hesitantly moving in front and sideways to the expectant long muzzle of his beaming and shy friend.

"My thoughts are. We shouldn't be talking about these things. You don't even need that to swoon any vixen, hah!" Nick threw his paws in the air with a fake smirk and nearly collided with a bigger mammal that was walking from the other side if it were not for his fox instincts and street experience. It was a good distraction tho, until it wasn't.

"Or tod," Tristan added slowly but surely and Nick's ears twitched, why had Tirstan just said that specific segment in his presence? Doubt, doubt and more doubt came to be and Nick tried to move his mind elsewhere again because this new thing, it was scaring him beyond what his imagination had been able to conjure to this day, a feeling he couldn't easily understand and information that was too scarce to be overviewed with ease, it was so complicated and shady… It didn't work well as guessed of many origins and shapes began spreading the plague around his psyche. It really sucked to lack clarity and the courage to ask directly…

"Ehm, yea. Or both. Whatever oils your rod, dude," Nick finally said without any sarcasm but with just plainness in his words that appeared so bleak to him, so detached… it wasn't usual of him reaching such a point of losing his only line of defence just like that, it was troubling… But it was the only way to remain confident on the outside and reserve himself time to look over what had happened till now, it wasn't the warmest of ways but it was one of the best.

"You're thinking about it now, aye?" Tristan cheekily interjected from the silence of the noisy district which got Nick to nearly stop moving and lose pace if it were not for his will forcing his legs to forge on and spit on defeat with defiance. Now that it was mentioned, his mind actually began thinking about fur colors, sheaths and… An involuntary reaction began growing down below and he pulled on the lapels of his coat in frustration after which his mind tried to find a way to save him from this humiliating spot that usually wouldn't have phased him at all.

"I'm no— Oh you little shithe—" It appeared that Tristan had finally managed to get under his skin, a gradual but sure build-up that was carefully made in response to Nick's teasings, which was understandable but Nick wasn't going to let him roam his lips free like that anymore and the only way to shut the crafty tod in flashy attire was to grab where the nerves spread most. Nick moved close to him as they walked by a pile of trash on the sidewalk and as he received a lolling tongue from Tristan, his paw shot straight for the base of Tristan's tail where the white lines met the hole in the soothing pants. The bushiness of white and dark-red overtook Nick's auburn paw and stiffness was felt around his pads of sensitivity, while the yelp of his friend resonated through the noisy neighbourhood like honey to his ears that got his throat to rumble lowly.

The dark-red tod's ears slumped to his skull and his paws flung to Nick's but Nick squeezed in a massageful motion which got the tod to buck his hips and lean forward with an opened mouth and panting tongue. But all ended in an instant as Tristan harshly turned around with curled lips that exposed his teeth that, even as they lacked the visor of sharpness, still managed to send a shiver through Nick's body. "Cut it off, prick!" he sneered through a snap of his jaw, to which Nick pulled with paws up, while behind those same paws was the inhabited grin of satisfaction and a wagging tail.

Nick's eyes noticed something else in his companion's tight trousers, while the glares of the mammals that passed them didn't even bring a mote of interest to his mind. "You pitched a tent or something, foxy?" the humiliating comment got Tristan to move his knees together and his paws to roam in front of him as he buttoned his coat to hide some of his awoken indecency. Nick didn't know why, but this was strangely alluring, yet such thoughts needed to be locked and the ones of jokery only to be allowed to breathe the stale air of this old place.

"Sod off," Tristan glowered out and continued on, while again tugging on his trousers as to readjust his misfortune that Nick knew for sure was very discomforting and inconvenient outside where others could see it. They had passed a lot of cars that were parked next to the sidewalk or on it entirely as there were no regulations being enforced by anyone from the government even if Happytown was undeniably part of Zootopia, none of the enforcers from institutions wanted to be close to this place because they weren't used to such difference in lifestyle, such dangerous difference if one didn't know how to look behind their back.

"Yea… we're here, tantrum tail," Nick said as he stood next to a red coupe with worn-out paint parked next to the sidewalk, which he tapped with his claw, and swung his head in a gesture as to show his companion to come back and hop in, while unlocking the door to the passenger's side and skirting in front as to get in but his eyes finally caught a great detail that was some meters away from the red vehicle, it was a jeep that was surely meant for a bigger mammal, a jeep which's roof was entirely caved in with glass shattered all around in tiny speckles of glisters. It made Nick's hackles to raise and eyes to see a slumped elephant construction worker close to one of the walls who had blood around his face and legs with other workers standing close to him and trying to help.

"Isn't this N—" Tristan tried to say but Nick quickly unlocked his side and got in from dreading fear that someone else might fall on them from negligence or mistake but this car would be smashed perfectly to the ground if the mammal was as big as that one. What if the crane fell because of cheap or unmaintained machinery and unreliable workpaws? A loud screeching noise of metal came from above and got Nick's hackles to raise to which he didn't falter turning the ignition and filling the engine with heat and rumbles, while Tristan entered and gave Nick a quizzical question with his brows.

"What?! You saw that jeep, quit staring at me," Nick scowled at the dark-furred tod who rubbed his eyes finally as he gazed away in the seeking of a distraction to which Nick's own expression developed the one he got annoyed from, yet his mind didn't ponder much and he shifted into gear with liquid fuel entering the veins of the engine, thus resulting in combustion and power. A car got by them rather quickly and way above the speed limit, which wasn't something new or strange, while the side-view mirror showed Nick a very big truck incoming with speeds unknown. He wanted to get in front but the words ' _Objects in mirror are closer than they appear to be.'_ got his ears to fall and breath to surrender in patient impatience.

The truck slowly moved by them with loud crashes from collision of the wheels into the holes but it finally carried its length and gave way to movement, which Nick took as a chance to get out of the trap and start the journey. He got close to the back of the truck and it appeared that it was just driving too slow and could get them late, he had to cut him off. The large steel box on wheels was just sluggish as hell as the driver was surely careful not to hit anything in the narrow road that was riddled with cars next to the sidewalk on both sides with some having doubled parked or done so on the sidewalk itself, the road wasn't being used as it was supposed to be in the original design created by the architects of this magnificent city but degenerating area and beloved island.

The dashboard kept cracking from the unkempt asphalt where tracks of vehicles had moved onto many-many times in repeats of unknown numbers. Nick opened up the arm rest in the middle of the car, from where he pulled out an outdated radio that he quickly attached to the power supply itself in the middle of the dashboard, where light poured in blue and letters showed that power was freely flowing into the circuits. But then, because he was too close to the slow truck, the car fell into a big hole that made the whole car frame crash in a deafening way that got Tristan to even yelp.

Nick's jaw clenched as he cursed through the depths of his mind and shifted into a lower gear that got the engine to roar with the bigger cycles and the gas pedal was smashed flat against the floor with the car filling the momentum with speed and getting on the side of the long and sluggish beast that hid traps underneath its tail. Nick's grip upon the wheel tightened as he saw a bigger car in the distance and prickling came to be in his gut that he wasn't going to make it due to the narrow passage that left no choice but the one forward.

"N-N-Niiiiiiiiiiiiick!" Tristan yelled as he grabbed the handle above the door, the car in front of him wasn't lowering its speed, as if the driver there wanted to go through them with steel and pain for the bad decision that was made, it got Nick's leg to hesitate and release slightly off the pedal which got the car to stall and lose momentum, yet he tried fixing the giant mistake by pushing his foot right into again and scream inside his head for this stupidity that happened in the span of seconds.

His breath became plain and uncomfortable with the quickly-developing satiation, it got his mind to spit at the decision made amidst anger… But then the truck hit the brakes and its speed became flat, to which Nick saw the chance to go through and did so feathers away from the head of the big vehicle, while the larger car passed through with speed that rattled the red coupe's whole existence as if a mini tornado just passed through. A loud horn pierced the air from behind the two foxes and made Nick's tail try develop bushiness that was still impossible to achieve, yet there was a small effect, his short fur there looked like young alpine needles.

The truck behind them roared its voice again and pressure filled it hydraulics as it started slowly moving again, yet Nick wasn't content on stopping even if he fully knew the mistake he had done that could've cost them their lives. His eyes carefully gave images to Tristan who was holding with both paws on the handle still, yet Nick got back to the road from fear of repeating that same idiotic move. Focus.

His paw rolled down the window with air flying in while the speed lowered considerably beneath the actual restriction given off by the government. His mind needed a distraction and got him to trail to the radio where his trembling claw missed the start power button several times in frustration until he clasped a knuckle and drove it into the poor electronic that buzzed into life and death metal music began pouring through the speakers, which got both foxes to flinch at the yelling and bellowing of the singer, who surely had throat problems from the sound of things, maybe mental at worst.

The channel was changed and with it came a slow-paced song of rock which got Nick to exhale slowly and grip the wheel with lesser intensity. A barely visible pedestrian crossing began coming closer to the car with an old mammal of bigger size having stepped on it with her cane of old and blurry eyes that glared into Nick's own as if commanding him to stop but he frowned and just got into the opposite lane as he wanted to be careful with the crazy hag, who could do something idiotic, which was normal for that age, and throw herself on the hood in spite.

A red headlight that flickered in disrepair got the brakes of the red coupe to grind against the wheels and the motion of movement was no more. Nick's black claws tapped the wheel in rhythm to the music and his gaze went to Tristan who still visibly exhibited shock and paralyzing fear from what just had happened, it got Nick to sigh in small amounts of amusement and berating moments that he had brought in festering coldness around his friend's heart.

There was no need to talk it out, they needed to get to their destination and time was ticking, it was ticking rather slowly for this headlight…

No matter, they were going to reach the Rainforest District sooner or later.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	14. Social Discontent

**Chapter Fourteen**

 **Social Discontent**

Dark green with hues of pure light brushed quietly round the rainy scape of artificial clouds humid, clouds that lacked the dark tints of calamity and fear white 'n' loud that would've chilled the veins, with every strike, of mammals past in the world of old where every boom loud would be interpreted as God's drums of wrath meant to punish those stained of sin alike. A reminder for the day of judgement that is to come for all who have let themselves be forgotten and devoured by the stain of evil, the stain of abnormal ugliness.

But now, now… now anything could be explained and recreated with the tools of the future, crafted by the minds of power, the engineers and architects of the new world. Progress deemed immoral by some and extraordinary by others, progress that had transgressed into the reach of creation, the reach where one could now play god. The feat of progress stood in front where the artificial forests giant towered high with integrations full of obscured machinery and hidden mechanisms that kept the eco-system stable and life for the mammals living there normal beyond any doubt that all of it wasn't supposed to be, fully engrossed in their normal and comfortable lives given.

All that could be seen through the recently cleaned window of a red coupe which's engine had sputtered out in rest that was reigning around the insides of its confines. Nick's both paws were gripping the steering wheel in a required way, while Tristan had hugged himself as to comfort his mind and body from troubles unknown. The air hung heavy of fox musk and gentle aromas of perfume, yet not enough to overpower the way of nature and what the body sought to make a presence of, the way it was supposed to be.

But Nick felt at peace within this hidden aura of closeness and likableness, yet his nose could faintly detect tints of something else, which was brushed off to be the mingle of floral perfume present. The softness of the seat given and in between the ruggedness from the time it was worn to use, now having developed and dug into the fabric in the shape of the rump that had most sat in it, which wasn't the red fox himself. Nick wanted to appreciate this moment before him, a moment where he'd stop thinking about it all and just be in the… _now_.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Nick asked and shortly after broke his leer at the sight and moved it at his silent companion who seemed as if he was deeply lost in his thoughts stretched. "Hey, what's up, Tris?" But still there was no reaction, so Nick put his claws on the rim of the dark-red tod's meaty ear and pinched annoyingly with the effect of an angry bee's sting that got the young fox to yelp rather adorable and put both his arms around his head in panic, which got Nick to snort and keep his gaze with a fakish morph of sorrow round his shorter muzzle.

Tristan broke out of the daze that didn't achieve much of length and gawked stupidly at Nick for a moment but out of nowhere his paw rushed towards Nick's arm, and bone collided with bone in a piercing way that brought up a jumpy reaction from the brushing of knuckles against Nick's body but the intoxicating amusement devoured the venomous pain. "Dickhead…" Tristan murmured and made space as he moved his white and red tail between them both to which it acted now as a bushy barrier, characteristic small that Nick truthfully was kinda jealous for, his own smooth tail still trying to reach its prime with its small hairs that gave way to the skin that was blanketing the length of his flesh under.

"Were you thinking 'bout the meeting?" Nick asked but in way that his amusement drained through the spoken which wasn't his intention as he genuinely wanted to know if something was wrong, yet his ways of hiding his emotions meddled in a time when he even wanted to show them, thus accidently insulting his friend.

"No," Tristan snapped out in annoyance but his ears fell at an angle that showed that even if the issue mayn't be about the incoming events, there was definitely something out of place in the fleshy box of white marbles. That got Nick's fingers to tap the sturdy shell of the steering wheel and move his troubled gaze again to the view before them as if his friend may decline in fear for the upcoming, the red tod did have the elixir of doubt for troubles yet non-existing. But in order for them to not lose their warmth, he had to get their minds invested off immediately. He had to think about… the… _Future_.

"Do you think that after… _this_. Everything will be different?" Tristan's ambers flickered with defiant flames for a bit but after a forfeiting blink, the base of his lip curled lightly into a subtle smile that got Nick's breath to exit happily.

"That's exactly what we've been working for, did you forget, N?" Tristan twisted his fingers round the white tip of his tail as if mocking Nick's memory to which the tightness around his ribs retreated bitterless.

"Well… but… I don't know if it'll work out. And I'm supposed to be the confident one, hah…" His eyes entered the abyss of the car's mileage that showed _98 593 km_ with the conflicting thoughts getting a squeeze on his tightening heart, because of the doubt that any of it would work out, if any of it would make the cut. A reach for the most disgruntled part came with the bias reality that he trusted to be true. "Maybe… maybe we can't be more than just shifty foxes?" Nick hesitantly added with Tristan huffing loudly in edgy irritation that got Nick's ears to fall down a few degrees shy of humiliation.

"With that mindset, no doubt…" Tristan's tail fell on the light-brown transmission stick and his body turned at a better angle to face Nick who had given all his attention forth with an anxious expression around his usually confident initials. Was his friend going to accept his words? If that happened, this deal would look even more distant than before, he needed the reassurance, he needed support. "But shouldn't we try to be better? To become something… more? To make a change… no matter how small and insignificant…"

Nick's chest narrowed slowly inwards with a precision of machinery, because his beliefs were being bashed around even as he knew that such actions wouldn't result in anything good. But having somebody for whom he cared for, someone who had went through the same slime and tribulations, telling him that they could be better, not judging his choices, and believing in him that change could be achieved, it crumbled Nick's demeanour while his solidified beliefs were trying to defend themselves from harm that the dark-red tod was trying to cause. He began feeling the barriers of safety starting to kick his emotions in the weakest of spots.

"Attitude won't be any different… it'll be even harder for us than now. Why should we take the risk? Why disappoint ourselves further?" Nick gave a series of questions that exited in webs of counter, yet Tristan only smiled through his concentration and slowly unbuckled the black seatbelt that was holding him restricted, after which he scooped closer to the edge of the worn out seat of light-grey and put a put his grey paw on Nick's shoulder that lost tension after the initial contact, while Nick's own auburn paws fell of the wheel and between his motionless legs.

"You told me once to not care about others' opinions… you told me to not let anyone get to me… I'm not you… I'm trying every day…" Nick could see that Tristan was trying, he wasn't the tod teenager like before as his shell had been broken and shaped to help him, rather than curb and smoulder. Tristan had grown and was still doing so like Nick himself, while seeing that process was so satisfying and kinda fulfilling as their bond had just tempered and tempered beyond the physics of what was possible.

"But you're wrong about one thing," Nick tilted his head in interest, "we should let those we care for in, we should care for their opinion because if not… that'd mean disregard… If we aren't doing this for society, we're doing this for… _us_ ," Tristan leaned closer as he put his free paw over his heart that surely was beating stronger than ever, "so we can see that we can be honest mammals… better versions of ourselves…" His ambers flickered under the warm light with reflections grazing over the ruby on his collar, while his mouth did movements of unconfidence that wasn't like the usual and known, this one carried something more that had a… strange effect which his gut was warning him about.

"I know you can be a better mammal, I've seen it," he resumed without holding eye contact anymore but then he snapped gently and leered into the depths of Nick's green, "your compassion, kindness… it hasn't eluded me, N… You despise what you do, it's hurting you… I feel the same. All these years… growing up wasn't easy but you helped me… I never… thanked you…" From where was this all coming from? Was this what had been on Tristan's mind of late, why was Nick worrying that something even greater was going to emerge from Tristan's deep emotions that appeared to have this intensity of airy prickling.

"You don't ha—"

"Through hardship we find what's precious… and… through finding out what's precious…" the paw on Nick's shoulder moved towards his creamy neck where it cupped gently and caressed the sensitive fur that got Nick to shiver shortly, "we find _the_ courage to act," Tristan's hot breath was reaching the front of Nick's muzzle where he could draw the scents of fruit that his friend always prioritized over, with meat being a place he never stepped into. But that wasn't what was troubling, Tristan was gathering strength to do something and this closeness only meant one thing… and it was terrifying...

He wanted to respond, put up that cocky barrier that would hide his feelings of petrifying destabilization but there was no time, time was fleeting and mortal when one lacked the ability of control because Tristan pulled him from behind the head and their muzzles collided teeth to teeth but Nick couldn't react, he couldn't believe the boldness he was witnessing nor the feelings that were streaming into his body in the form of hotness and buzzing thrill with eyes wide open and mouth overtaken, there was no time to think about or to try and formulate a logical response as he was being drowned into this flushing of affection.

Slickness moved around his fleshy lips with a spongy piece that tried to sneak between his teeth as it curled around the side of his gums. A nip by one of the dull canines came to be as the kiss broke with Tristan opening his sultry eyes but in that instant moment Nick's hackles raised and a low growl filled his salivating mouth which got Tristan to recoil back with lowered ears and tail that quickly went away from Nick. Pride reached an overflow, while fear reached a point of boil.

 _This is wrong._

Why did he just do this, where did this primal aggression come from, why was his heart hurting by seeing his friend in such a state of humiliation and dread, why was there this painful feeling in his pants… well it didn't take much to find out about the last part as he tried to readjust himself on the seat with a fix to his shirt's collar, while his eyes moved away as he trekked through what had just happened and why Tristan had just done this out of the blue. More importantly, why had he given him the chance and why hadn't he reacted appropriately to stop this… unnatural attempt of overstepped bounds unwritten or unspoken, yet known and executed until this very moment bizarre?

It wasn't as if he had never, in his entire life, pictured something like this happening with the imagination running rampant as he had sought ideas and reactions that he'd probably undergo, yet he had never thought such about his closest friend, a friend who meant so much to him, a friend whose courage bubbled out of nowhere about this… it was wrong, it was unacceptable and disgusting… But why? Who? Who saw it as disgusting, was that him?! What was actually seen as revolting, Tristan was a gorgeous and even smarter tod with everything a vixen would've wanted in the search of an appropriate mate, yet the idea of that specific gut feeling and mindset was there.

Where was the core of the idea that was feeding off into his head that this was wrong, who was responsible for this was of thinking without actually thinking? At that moment, the animosity turned into anxiety that began spreading slowly through his heart and veins and bones. A catalyst of stress that gave into shorter and rapid breaths due to his disability of finding a coherent and solid answer for himself. He hated feeling lost, he hated not knowing what to do… But most of all, he despised prejudice. The answer was beginning to come closer, and it got his mouth to turn into a sneer given.

"What the fuck happened… just now?" Nick asked through grit teeth of frustration and squinted at his friend who was looking out of the opened window with the tail between them again, he exhibited detailed signs of regret and the air now tasted of fear instead of that one that now he could easily place a word upon: need. In the distance Tristan was surely just blankly staring were the North Mountains, behind which was the province of Groshia hidden and waiting with its bumpy terrain and old-era industrial design. Everso, none of that could be seen but the tall peeks of snowy caps and the forestry below the middle of those said young giants formed.

"I'm s-sorry… it w-was nothing… Just… f-forget it…" For a moment he considered it, the idea of just shrugging it off and twisting the keys to start the cold engine and get to business, but his friend was disheartened, this crazy confession had taken a toll on his mind and it definitely was done in the wrongest of times, maybe he should've never parked on this view, or talked about the future in such a way? But it all summed to this, seeing him hurt was worse than going through all of society's hate in a day, his chest was heaving in tightness and that idea that was being considered shattered into thousands of pieces unrepairable. He wanted to find out the truth about this, he needed to understand his own views and why they were as such.

So with a motion of his paw down his shorter muzzle, Nick sighed and reached for Tristan's shoulder, to which his friend flinched hard and met Nick's eyes in horror as if he were to get a beating for what he had done. That had done it, Nick's hackles were entirely calm, his teeth were hidden and the anger was replaced by regretful behaviour. "Talk to me, dude. We've known each other since kits, c'mon." But Tristan remained silent and surely stricken with angst to do so normally and productively…

Nick gulped down his male pride that was visibly making him distant at this current moment of revelations and clicked off the seatbelt that was holding him in spot, after which he used the moment that was open due to his friend having made space on the seat, being glued to the door pretty closely, and agilely squeezed on the other seat with an arm going around Tristan's neck and their bodies now sharing the heat of one another, which got Tristan's ears to go up in reflex but then down as his head defensively lowered.

"You're right, we shouldn't keep those we care for out the loop. So I need you to tell me what you want and how you feel, 'kay?" The closeness that he had created wasn't something new, they had been like this countless of times but now after the strange kiss and heated, which had been even pretty good, there was this tingling around the spots of contact his shirt and trousers were keeping from fully connecting. His other brain was fully reacting in the form of a bulge that was hidden by his pants' wrinkles and folds, which greatly issued confusion in him. He did see Tristan as attractive for potential vixens but…

Who was he kidding, of late and the strange signals he had been receiving, he wasn't going to lie to himself by saying that he hadn't fantasized about a thing or two with him, especially with the emotional link they both had, a link that had removed those specific details that would usually act as a deterrent present. But not with it, not with its magnificent power present and iron grip of relentlessness. Tristan shuffled uncomfortably but didn't try to make more distance, it wasn't even possible. He actually moved closer into Nick and pushed into his body, while his head leaned closer so that the warmth of the surely flushed cheeks recoiled off Nick's supporting shoulder.

"Ughm… We've been friends for so long and … I'd like we to be something more… I know you don't swing that way but… I know you're going to try and get serious with Nas…. I couldn't let you try until I had tried, until I was sure you'd push me away… after all, you helped me learn about the meaning of confidence… of being strong… of being a real tod…" Those words, that order, those memories, that tone and emotion… Nick wanted to let the pride for his friend to bloom as he just showed so much bloody progress, it was baffling, yet speechlessness was just… commanding and assertive, while his curiosity gave way to silence and more that had been a definite no-go.

"I know it's not something you'll easily accept and get used to. But don't give in to what society thinks, Nick! Don't think for them. Think for yourself, find what _you_ truly feel. Don't let them dictate who you are, how they've always done to _us_ … We're more than just shifty foxes, and there's nothing wrong with what we can have!" Tristan barked with many hues of desperation as if these words were the last of what he could give to an insight of his mind and wants, while the effects of the whip of emotions trashed around Nick's mind without mercy. His eyes just stared into the dashboard meaninglessly now as they had lost focus… Society… prejudice… established morals and morals linked to society itself…

They tell it is wrong, immoral, unnatural and putrid. We've been taught prejudice and restriction from the beginning that has festered deep within our fibers of past innocence now considered true and right, yet how could that be viewed as such when that same hate resides within us, making us oblivious to the truth that can only be found by smashing the shackles of regress and getting out of the swamps of society that have turned into bogs of malice, greed and envy. In the end, those that truly don't give a fucking shit are exactly those who openly point out the wrong and right, the collective judges of irrationality and selfishness.

Everything is to revolve around them and their opinions that even lack any empathy whatsoever towards anyone but themselves, due to that present negligence formed by the stiffened thinking formed by society then, and passed on to society now. A never-ending loop of hatred limitless and unnecessary, but such is the will of those stained with loath and terror, terror that they themselves may sub-consciously want that which makes them uncomfortable and horrified, it's in the form of insecurity and unconfidence which is to be eradicated by the only way known to them. Hypocrisy and pure malice bilious.

 _What's so wrong with such relations?_

 _Why're they seen as vile and degradations?_

 _They shrill unnatural and evil,_

 _Yet can't they see the hypocrisy primeval?_

 _…_

 _Hiding behind veils of disgust,_

 _Their insecurities that way are put to rust._

 _They judge and label without relent,_

 _Their way of paying their masks' rent._

"I'm tenacious enough to say that… that I…" his voice became weakish and his fingers pulled on his collar while the ambers moved around, but then, with a very hot breath against Nick's muzzle, Tristan divulged with unshaken resolve.

"I love you, Nicholas."

But instead of trying to get closer, he tried going further into the door in impossibility as if already knowing the outcome of this _story_. Nick felt this searing pain inside of his chest, it bludgeoned and trampled so much that he feared that he was going to have a heart attack that'd be the end of his life, these words were just too much for him to bear, for his shield to remain whole and keep him in the shade of safety… It chipped with every vigorous pump of blood, until the frame of past solidity started to collapse to dust and meaningless existence of survival past.

The heat was trying to get him to pant but he was forcing that away, his mind was begging for more space of contemplations, to flee to a zone of comfort where his vulnerability would be unseen but his heart chose otherwise, to reach a middle ground around this catastrophe… this warm and delightful reality… Somebody cared for him so much, somebody wanted him, somebody actually… _loved_ him… His lips wrinkled in detest to those lingers of repulsion, they were misplaced, they were the actual revulsion that was a monster in a disguise of supposed angel, a putrid slime to be thrown into the slits of dirt and sewage.

Hatred for his prejudice exploded and began ravaging every single thought that would try and make this special moment seem like a transgression, like an act of abhorrence to be thrown out unwanted. A trunkless ideal ready to be toppled down fully and forgotten, while the truth would become accepted and cherished, the truth that he was loved by someone whom he cared for deeply, someone who he trusted and knew… someone precious to him.

His frown collapsed deeply into the outrage of his mind, it showed what was happening inside and Tristan put both his arms around himself in brittleness and angst but Nick's paw shot for Tristan who flinched and closed his eyes, yet the auburn paw got around the young tod's neck and pulled to which the shorter muzzle got underneath the longer one that was being held so low as to hide the vulnerable throat, yet the hard push of Nick's snout managed to go underneath and stop just before the base where his eyes were.

That was when Tristan opened his eyes and gulped down that was felt as movement on the side of Nick's lips, he stood like that, apathetic. He didn't respond with words, he kept his mouth shut and just intensely watched Tristan's panicking and sweet ambers, if nothing like this had happened, Nick would've found this very amusing and fun but right now the only feelings that were coursing through him were fear, appreciation, hesitance and doubt to what he had heard. It could've been just a flick, a hormone disbalance or just a dare? But there were no hints in the air but those of truth and his friend's eyes showed no betrayal in the spoken and intimately shared.

This was… _real_.

Those words, rarely spoken by anyone and lacking meaning when done so by mammals who'd use them for manipulation. He hadn't heard them in such a way for a long time and they managed to attach hard to his inferno heart which finally got his mouth to open and his tongue to begin the pants from heat. There was no trickery, this was real and even if he didn't know what to do, he chose to follow what his gut was telling him to, to let it flow, to let it unfold, to let it flourish, to let it bloom into a dazzling flower.

But how would that look, they were not only foxes but were both tods, such relationships weren't looked upon with good eyes from society no matter how advanced it was. It especially was looked down hard in Happytown… But when did he care about the scrutiny of the world of what he did and who he was? That argument held no power, it was miserable and destructive if taken serious. There was nothing wrong even if it was deemed immoral and wrong to nature. Who gave a fuck even but the mammal next to him who was anxiously waiting for his response… awaiting for the warmth to be projected back, to be bathed in what he had given so selflessly, so passionately.

Only the opinion of those that cared mattered, the rest was garbage worthy only to be spat upon, hypocrites unconfident who'd try to funnel their own insecurities into others and labelling them as the problem, thus creating a barrier of protection round their sorry lives. Here he had someone who he knew well, someone who had been in his life for as long as he could remember. He was smart, good, even rather handsome and most important of all was that he cared for him, he was invested and emotionally attached.

It was true that Nick was looking of prospecting into courting the white vixen Nas who he knew for some time as well and she was definitely an angel sent by God, yet the missing closeness, one that he had with Tristan, was what was getting him to rethink his moves, his plans for the future ahead. Why should he invest time and energy further when here right now he was being offered all of that in bulk with, realized and served in a silver platter right for the taking and tasteful consuming. A different bite with unknown qualities, but attractive nonetheless. Ones unexperienced and untouched, a path full of curiosity and new colors that'd be a bliss to be seen, to be accepted.

They could try, it wouldn't hurt them as it'd only fuel the feeling of happiness more, he'd have his friend with the additional feelings beyond the normal relationship, which was worth it, especially since both cared for each other deeply. Even if it would fail to work out, they would be friends yet again and that was the beauty of it, the lack of risk undertaken due to the understanding and trust between the two of them… This was something out of a novel, fiction, blasphemous fantasy… Thus Nick's head moved out and above, with his creamy neck becoming exposed to Tristan's flabbergasted eyes which couldn't understand what was going on, while his body squirmed in the trapped enclosure of the underspaced seat of heat and bubbling passion.

But Nick was patient and kept his neck up, a move predators would make to show trust to the other, trust that explained that they were giving their life at the claws and teeth to the other, that the other was in charge of what would happen next. And what happened, even when expected, got Nick's heart to melt in appreciation when he felt the soft dark-red fur of his friend who ran his muzzle under the creamy fur with sounds of purring that got Nick's legs to actually tremble in effect to what was cropping up in response to his decisions made.

It had been such hard moments for him to accept this but now, during these moments where affection great was being shown to him by the tod under his own muzzle, tod who was grinding his own fur into Nick's neck and was just getting his jades to quiver and mouth to shake slightly in between the unstoppable pants. Nick's claws dug into Tristan's shirt and Nick slightly lowered his head which made the movements below a bit slower and more effective in a ticklish way, while his head pushed against Tristan's in gentleness and needed closeness.

But then came a nip that shot a silent yelp in his throat as Tristan's canines had come into the play and even when they lacked sharpness, the effects of vigor filled Nick's body with the sensitivity turning up notches from which he squeezed his legs that carried his throbbing bulge. He hoped that this wouldn't end up to where it was heading as he was unsure if he could do it as they lacked time as well and more importantly: a bias-free mindset that wasn't that easy to unlock free and full, it needed time. But there was no stopping from his friend's part as more playful nips reached Nick's pinkish skin below the white fur of his jugular. Yet this was so enjoyable… so… _delightful_.

Nick was rigid and stiff like wood and couldn't register the light groans of discomfort coming off his friend that was from the penetrating squeeze of his claws that had dug hard into the shoulder grabbed. This wasn't his first time receiving such warm attention but it definitely was the most wild and new as he was receiving it by his best friend, a tod with that long and charming muzzle, bushy tail and narrower neck, while the scent of musk… of male… there was nothing to compare this with, nothing... The thoughts with the care underneath got his nerves to calm down a bit as he finally let out a moan of satisfaction to ring around both their at-attention ears which flicked in the trance perceived.

The edge of the seat was getting a bit discomfortable but after Nick's moan the dark-red tod's eyes opened lightly and he slowly rotated his body with a knee going right in between Nick's tightly shut legs that hid the awakened arousal itself. The knee went further in the squeezing of his thighs and reached the throbbing package while ambers just leered into green, to which Nick gulped hard without a plan on how to proceed as he felt unable, he felt submissive, he felt trapped, put into a corner of no return and most of all, he felt more feminine and unconfident as never. All that in front of his best friend from whom he hadn't ever expected such feelings and such boldness … It boggled the mind, especially when their lips met again with warmth and gentleness going around his cheeks, this times his eyes closed with an idea and need to do something, to stop being passive and take action which he did try with his paws that reached for Tristan's sides of chest.

The masculine smell was streaming down his nose with those floral tints in par, the taste of another was bathing around his mouth, his breath was being sucked in time and time again, his mind was running through scenarios and distant fantasies all at once, his pants were feeling more and more unwanted and the heat was getting close to unbearable, yet he felt the want and need, his body wanted more even when it was with somebody that nature had deemed illegal. The barriers were falling with each deep infection smooch of affection and trails of tongue around his sharp teeth that answered in playful bites in turn.

But it ended suddenly when he felt weight around his legs and noticed that he was in the shadow of his friend who was had fully saddled the base of his legs, while overlooking from above in this beaming joy. Both their foxhoods were touching with the barriers being those of their clothing and Nick's ears fell as he chuckled nervously. "Sooo… how does this work?" Nick asked through a bashful smile, while Tristan's brows furrowed and he made some space between them while he fully lowered his weight and leaned back with holding support being that of the grasp on Nick's arms.

"Haven't you ever tr—"

"No!... I mean no… never with a tod…" Nick said with embarrassment and tried to put his arms in front of him defensively, yet that appeared impossible as Tristan was keeping himself at balance with his back closer to the airy space to the dashboard.

"Haven't you see—"

"How could I, just the idea disgusted me from just taking a look…" Nick murmured high enough so that he could be heard but felt uneasy from the choice of his words, yet he had to be real with his friend or the rollercoaster of failure would begin ploughing too soon as that was what lies did, they destroyed, they stained, the contained deathly hallows. The repercussion came as quickly as they were gnawed upon, with Tristan's playfulness ceasing to exist and his firm hold upon the paws of touch subsiding, while he slumped his upper body and just kept his attention at Nick with this new dourness which buzzed bitterness in the scourgeful within Nick for the unintentional damage he had inflicted upon his precious friend.

"Oh… wait… are you letting me do this because of… pity? Am I… repulsing you?" Tristan hissed in this sorrowful contempt with his clawless finger tugging on the collar round his neck again as if it was getting him unable to breathe, while Nick tried to find the best of words in their best of order to best of fix the damaged bridge.

"What? Does this look like repulsion to you?" Nick bashfully said as he pointed at the bulges between them which got him to blush away in turn as he again crossed his arms in front from needed reassurance. But he wasn't going to wait for this to unfold fully, they had work to do and talk to finish which required time and more privacy as even if they weren't in an active part of the city, this still was a public place with cars and trucks flashing behind them on the busy road. "We've got to go. Tick-tock, _Romeo_. We'll talk about this after t—" But as he was trying to get his lighter friend off him in an attempt to slide to the other seat, the paws that used to be holding leverage, gripped into the sleeves of Nick's shirt and a panicked fox came close to his muzzle yet again but this time there was no supper in the form of delicious kisses.

"Wait-we… there's some time and that… just wait… we can… you know? The quick one?"

"What are you blabbing about you crazy fox?" But no vocal answer came, his friend stood still like that for some moments and then his gaze fell between them to which Nick followed, noticed that spots of enthusiasm and moved his gaze back where it was met with a tongue going around the rims of the hungry lips of his friend. "Aren't you first going to court me, heh? A date?" Nick sassed with mockery as he licked his own lips absentmindedly, which got Tristan's tail to fall to the floor in fluster, while his throat tried to find words of suit.

"It's not like… We've known each other since forever and… there's no need for dates wi—"

"You're such a romantic, sour puss," Nick interjected as he pushed a fist in Tristan's chest that got him to _oof_.

"It's not like we can't go but… you're stressed!" he finally blurted out with confidence that got his eyes to sparkle and Nick to actually snort.

"No shit. My best friend wants to get inside my pants. How dare I?!" At the comment Tristan frowned and knuckled Nick's ribs lightly in a weak manner which got them closer muzzle to muzzle again but Tristan's twitching white whiskers relieved some of the seriousness and didn't totally overthrow Nick's demeanor. Them moving like that got Nick to want to grab his cheeks and begin mushing them childishly.

"Look. I know it's hard for you to allow yourself this… If I was a vixen it'd have been entirely different—"

"Hey you wait a sec—"

"Let me finish, N! Then you can answer," Tristan pleaded with a sad scowl that got Nick's anger for retaliation at the accusation to cease and his mouth to close, even if it opened again from the need to pant and the crave to taste those warm lips before him. "What I want is to give you pleasure because… it will fulfil me when I do. I won't ask more of you, only for you to try something new." His grey paw cupped Nick's cheek with a smile sent but Nick looked away shamefully. "Are you afraid what others might think? Nas, Trot? It could be our secr—"

"I'm not afraid. And it won't be a secret!" Nick snapped his teeth at his friend who recoiled away in safety but remained his position of straddle. "I just have me—… I mean I could see hints you gave off recently but I've never expected… _this_!" he pointed at the space between them and his paw shortly after reached for his muzzle's top in the need of physical reassurance.

"Just relax… you don't have to do anything, I'll take care of it… it will be like with the vixens, don't worry…" The implications, what was being offered at the price of null, without anything wanted in return but affection… A selfless act, disguising the selfishness of giving pleasure to a mammal whom about was cared for, an intention that even with the hidden egoism was viewed as… one of great importance and value. How could that need be viewed as a transgression when it was giving so much and asking for so much less… asking for him, to give him, to satisfy him…

"Oh, Zootopia, what have you done to him…" Nick sighed in exasperation with a gaze that remained still at Tristan's anticipating yellows but then Nick chuckled with a shake of his head and finalized, "Alright, you dirty tod, get off me so it can be comfortable in this _big_ car." Tristan didn't seem compelled to argue and moved his weight off Nick with quickness and Nick used the moment to slide away and onto the driver's seat where he fixed his shirt and contemplated on the heat that was being lost around the top of his thighs.

"Something wrong?"

"Everything…" Nick answered bashfully but didn't wait to be told and moved the zipper down where his throbbing bulge was. He rolled down his window and peeked if there was anyone that could catch them in the act, especially officers who could link it to prostitution and take them in because of them being foxes and therefore: liars. That couldn't happen in the constricted time they had, so as the coast was clear, he removed the button and his winish-colored boxers came into view of Tristan who was practically beaming in glee unseen.

"May we make God proud," Nick jested as he readjusted the tentish cloth which got the tingle to roam freely around his thighs and some saliva to nearly fall from his maw as he lost himself in the touch for a mere moment, a moment that was entirely eaten by the hungry tod before him whose arms were propped on the armrest in the middle. With a claw that moved underneath the soothing boxers, Nick shyly glanced at his friend with a very exhausting breath and a flutter that roamed his stomach, after which he pushed down slowly, thus starting to reveal the crimson flesh of hardness that was throbbing with every quick beat of his heart in a delay of reach, while dampness had placed itself all around the cloth and head, dampness that glistered in reflection to the sun's bouncing light.

The outside, where life of the districts' borders met in the mingle of that artificially made, was so evident and easily to make contrast of. The jungle fauna of big leaves and moss of quantity, it was trying to get over the elevation and enter Savanna Central, but from above like army guardsmen holding off the front in defiance stood the vegetation which was deemed normal, which was deemed natural. Neither could win the battle as neither was able to survive in the other's shoes or in this matter, roots. Natural and unnatural, living in harmony and balance with bounds shown and peace hard like stone.

"Screw that old wizard," Tristan chuckled through a lick on his nose and tried to lean towards Nick's length but Nick immediately stopped him with a hard shove on the reluctant head which was almost not enough to stop the hungry dark-red tod.

"Hold your tail, foxy. Don't you have rubber?"

"Wh— I don't have cuts… besides. I know you'd tell me if you had anything, sweetie. I trust you." Sweetie… now that was a new one that he had never heard being called by Tristan, it almost got him to surrender to the advance, yet it apparently wasn't enough.

"It's not that, thickhead! I've taken several leaks today. Don't be nasty! And how do you know if I'm clear? And who knows what you could have from those friends of yours," Nick jabbed in an attempt to discourage Tristan as he was getting more and more nervous by the second with his bare flesh exposed like that to his friend's determined eyes. It was laying furrowed on his creamy belly fur where it moved lightly with every flow of enriched energies of life within his body envigored.

"Hey! I've been careful and I've done tests. Especially since a certain vixen you got me associated with. Those gals are way more risky than tods!" he shoved while unbuttoning his shirt, which began exposing the grey of his belly and chest, while he finally began panting from the heat of the day and the one of his body. "Besides, it's been a year…" The notes of honesty and body language that came with them got Nick to accept that as truth and wondered why Tristan had abstained himself from such pleasurable activities, tho the answers that came as guesses worked wonders on his mind and other.

"That's why you're so desperate to go after me, eh, dude?!" Nick bounced in a chuckle that got his rod to bobble as well, which left trails of stickiness around his creamy fur that weren't severing and stood like strings of liquid cobwebs around his sensitive underbelly that just begged for attention and care.

"I'm not… just realized how I felt about you… this isn't lust, I'm sure!" Nick's ears hid as he caught the hurt in his friend's voice and even with him literally having his dick out shamefully, he felt rather guilty about his words, thus decided to cut the tension into pieces without strength by moving his paw towards his warmth-emitting mass and touching the top of his russet sheath from where his pride had woken up from, pride that he lightly caressed while looking intently at Tristan who appeared to be easing off the tension unnecessary.

"Just twisting your balls, cutie… There's a cloth in the glove box, could you pass it?" Tristan gave him a look of baffle, then gave Nick's fleshy stick a look of puzzlement but then hesitantly reached for the button and opened the small compartment where a few light bulbs hid in the corners and some wrenches of different sizes that were covered over with yellow tarp to which Tristan pointed and Nick nodded.

But before he could hang it to him, Nick added, "Peek outside and wait." Tristan just gawked at him until he shook his head and made a noise that was between annoyance and a groan. But he sighed ever so and shuffled towards the window, his back turning towards Nick and showing him off a view he'd normally wouldn't be interested in checking out. But now, now he was scrutinizing intently Tristan's rump that didn't have that much of a mass, tho the muscle surely added for the effect of a curve enough to make Nick try and push his pants lower as to get some more space for his _dignity_. The combination of Tristan's magnificent tail tho, it filled pressure in Nick's red that surfaced in the form of pre-cum which spread around the pointy head of bareness and baldness. As if it were crying now for the attention that wasn't being given so desperately.

It got him to bite his lip and stop himself from grabbing the angry red and thrusting it into obedience, yet his mind was roaming around Tristan's body in thirsty exploration, especially after his tail wagging and legs that moved even so apart as if to give more than what was not even asked of. He was fully giving himself into Nick and was expecting nothing in return, that sole idea was fuelling the desire to act upon the new reality, to make him his like he'd do so in turn…

But then the red and white tail fell and the annoyed voice of his friend moved across the ceiling in a muffle of barely audible, to which Nick laughed internally and pushed the windshield's wipers pump that got water to climb up the tubes and splash onto the windshield and Tristan's paw that became slightly soaked after a few moments. That got him to wonder how Tristan's rod looked like, was it bigger and thicker, was it oilier and slicker? Was it smaller and less effective… he didn't like that idea, yet even thinking about it was enough to understand what that meant, how far he had gone into the depths of the glowing hole of life.

"What, you're going to do a ritual with this?" Nick's stare fell and he noticed the piece of tarp right next to his face, until he felt the cold drips that landed on his leaking arousal, which got him to flinch and he quickly grabbed the cloth.

"Yea, I'll baptize myself… just… just watch and shush," he ordered meekly and grabbed the dripping tarp which he squeezed in reach out of the window. Then his eyes glanced at the intent ones of Tristan that were aiming at his still-hard length, which got him to sigh in amusement and reach for his pride, a reach that felt a bit chilly at the touch but he grit his teeth and began going over the thick red slowly and repeatingly, while Tristan's paws squeezed the seat in trepidation.

Nick helped his foxhood up straight and grabbed it at the base and squeezed up which got even more pre-cum to escape the summit's hole, liquid that streaked off like molten lava off a volcano and Nick went across it with the cloth and around the pointy tip with harsher motions as to scrub anything filthy from the day. If he was going to have it sucked by someone as special as his best friend, he wasn't going to be half-assed as he knew the taste of unclean crotches, never dicks but the difference in comparison wasn't much of a one. Hygiene just mattered, like a lot. Nobody liked fish when there was none.

Just when he was to go over the tip and sheath's top where his hidden knot was, something thrust behind him and grabbed the base of his tail which pulled out a yelp and he slapped his canine flesh on his wrist but Tristan didn't mock or laugh, he began massaging motions around that area of stimulation and Nick quickly tried to finish the now-torturous as he swirled the cloth around the spot.

 _God dammit, Tris. You seductive ass. Look what you're doing at our most important day…_

Nick's nerves were buzzing around the end of his spine and towards his front, he was being edged harder and harder and it was incredible. He decided that it was enough and that he wanted the real deal, he wanted Tristan's mouth around his most intimate part of his body, he wanted _him_. Thus, he threw the cloth between the gap of the seats and gently put his claws under Tristan's grey muzzle which Nick tilted to meet his own gems. Tristan's ambers quivered and Nick swore he saw him tear up but couldn't be sure as his friend licked his lips and slowly dived towards the destination on the seat of spread awaiting.

Hesitance came if he was to let him, there was no return from this, none, he'd be too far gone as when forbidden fruit is tasted, the logical reactions, the want for more, the crave and need to fill that hole created by the experience new is just unstoppable to the regretful behaviour. But the many years of friendship and the devotion Tristan had shown throughout, the care Nick himself had for him, it all culminated to the point of acceptance of what was to happen, of what was to transpire between two tods in their early twenties who had found something special in the towers of trash that they had to swim through to get to where they were. Who was he kidding, those piles of abhorrence were so tall, so massive that right now he wondered if this was just an insane dream where his imagination was running unchecked, wild… But the truth was, this was reality.

Hollowness suffused of quality that had roamed the life of inequality, long and level of past, colorful and fuzzy present come.

The grey and familiar paw grabbed the base of his shaft which got his throat to rumble with this high pitched sound of deafness, his arousal was aimed up with a string of stickiness that defied to be broken as it hung in the air. Then, Tristan's long tongue came out his long muzzle with saliva trailing down the middle and towards the pole of need where it collided at the pointy top and down the round mass. Nick shivered from the sensation of something foreign touching him there but when Tristan's tongue went around his whole length tightly and warmly, he moaned internally and put his paws close to Tristan's neck and on the armrest of the door, and the space of the car suddenly felt so small and cramped with the air feeling as if steamy, as if mist alive.

The heat around his sheath increased and the fullness invigored his hips to thrust which he did to the surprise of his friend whose eyes shot wide with his jaw opening slightly and exposing the rows of teeth that once had been used to tear, shred and kill. He may have had dulled them but Nick knew they could still pierce to which he understood Tristan's shock that waited in his eyes and Nick nervously shrugged his shoulders in blank contempt as he was too embarrassed to make a jest out of what had transpired, there was even this distant fear that words would end this, fear of another kind as well if he still had time to stop this transgression, this act of moral degradation…

No choice was met, no choice was sought, so he let the silence to calm down and Tristan, after some staring with heat between his teeth, continued his soothing motions of intimacy. It was like a normal blowjob but it didn't lack anything but that of ordinary as it felt so much more, so full of new and softening. His arousal was insane, his sensitivity high as ever, the scent of his male friend: lovely and intoxicating, the idea that his closest friend giving him off pleasure, it all accumulated to one cocktail of emotions that fueled the fires of his libido blazing. The tongue swirled around his pride and the grey paws began reaching for other places of interests, one towards his buttoned stomach of shirt decent, the other for the space under his furry orbs.

Nick smoothed the disgruntled fur on top his muzzle an internally slapped himself for allowing clothing to let the inferno in him roam, thus shakily he reached for his buttons and began stripping off his decency while the paw intruding climbed up with every button freed. Nick felt entranced, on fire, and most importantly: on the very edge that he was keeping himself desperately from reaching and humiliating, thus his todness. Something lightly tapped the side of the door from the outside which got his heart to falter in the iron grip of unsettled angst, while his eyes took in the surroundings outside that consisted of grass, asphalt and an abandoned truck that had its tyres missing. There didn't seem to be anyone and wind rustled inside the vehicle to which he contemplated that it was the cause.

Just as he was to look above his beloved friend's head, the tongue lapped faster and massaging motions came to be just near his orbs to which his thigh's knees closed together and his back extended up the seat as if it were to try and climb its height. Nick's panting tongue went to the side of his mouth with saliva starting to drip onto his exposed creamy chest where a grey paw was roaming searchingly, his head went against the headrest, and he moaned hard with the pressure in his furry orbs building while the paw close to there was doing something strange in the form of even harder pleasure that was spreading all around the middle of the gap and up, especially around his tail where a tickling sensation was making him uncomfortable in this position, it was making him want to thrust forward.

With another swirl that came, something new and more… adventurous took sensation around the pointy mass, where the spongy tongue stiffened and pushed into the leaking crevice. It stung at first but then, after the effects of discomfort waned into pleasure of the moment, a great deal of other sensual tinglings spread around his praised and throbbing head. The nerves were climbing down the insides and were reaching the fleshy mainframe with same but different ways. Pressure came after some more and tougher probing to which he thought he was going to soil himself, or more importantly: Tristan's slick mouth. As much as that sounded mischievous and likeable, due to the blazing arousal, he wasn't going to risk such a thing happening, despite not knowing if it could actually transpire anyways.

So he squeezed his prostate as desperately as possible because there was no want to make Tristan stop. His vision blurred and hackles were raised with a sudden protective urge crawling through his blood, while Tristan's head bobbled, with change of tactic yet again, up and down his drenched length, which's auburn tip on his foreskin was disheveled and greatly soaked. Nick's claws dug around the backside of Tristan's neck and his teeth grit so suddenly that he almost bit off his tongue if it hadn't climbed back into the hot mess of mouth of his.

 _Holy f-f-fox!_

But the dark-red furred tod wasn't stopping even with the definite pain Nick was causing with his sharp claws of deadly capabilities. Nick's knees buckled reflexively again in a squeeze and suddenly the paw around his chest went around and at his tail again which this time had an effect never experienced before with the tingle now being given care and that resulted in it moving around his orbs, while inside of him he felt movement hot. Nick realized what his friend was thinking of doing and they couldn't afford it right now as time was running out, thus he moaned out weakly, "S-stop, dude… You know how it w-works…" All that was received was a sultry _purr_ with a growl and a squeeze on his knot the moment it surfaced from hiding off the unique sheath of auburn.

At a time Nick would've seen the idea of unloading himself in his friend's mouth as disgusting and wrong but right now it seemed so right, appropriate and… required… He was close to it, his knot was out and stimulation was coming from every angle, his mind was telling him to let it go, to let the young tod taste his breed, to evaluate it and appreciate its taste and form of magnificent fertility. He wanted to give it to him, this was a moment of instinctive passion. But they lacked time, there wasn't any time left with what he had in mind…

"E-enough, T-Trist-tan… c'mon…" Nick tried meekly and pulled on Tristan's head but the tod shot him a reluctant glance and continued in defiance, which got Nick to try harder but the feeling of teeth scraping around his knot got him to groan in a mix of disgruntled moans, and to let go. Why was Tristan being such an idiot stubborn kit? "It's going to get m-messy, bro! Nas will s-strip our p-pelts if she fo—"

His feet sprung in interruption, his bushless tail stood tall and his claws dug so hard in Tristan's flesh that he felt the warmth of liquid streaming round his claws of black with the scent of blood mixing in between the odors of pleasure heavy. But there came another jolt as his warm seed flew between the gap of his friend's long jaw, while that same tongue didn't falter even for a moment as it focused its attention at the source of the incoming, the source of milky stickiness that appeared to be just beginning its escape from the fleshy confines inside. Not only that, focus came as his brain was fed with the drug-like effects of dopamine which ran through his body in the moments of a flash.

Nick's free paw reached for his muzzle as he groaned with a sigh that lacked any more care, as he knew that a mess was inevitable with how his shaft worked as he could ride hardness up to five minutes while his member would shoot warmth until then. There were accessories for such messes created specifically but how could've he known that his best friend would want to give him head? Was he going to remain there until it stopped? That wasn't going to happen and as Nick moved his drained eyes down, he noticed something out of the ordinary with a view as well that made his roots of sensitivity to spike.

Tristan's mouth was at such an angle that Nick's whole male flesh was visible in between the lines of teeth and long spongy tongue with sticky trails of lineage holding on or streaking down. His foxhood wasn't stopping with the spurts of love but it was constricted by the rubber that grey paws slid down close to Nick's knot with some rubbing that stung a little bit as the rubber reached behind the enlarged mass of red. Because this rubber had a bigger end than a normal condom, it looked like a knotter, a cheaper variant to those lonely or like in this case, pre-occupied and time-constricted to the strange streaks of luck.

The curious observations ended as Tristan's cupid eyes flared as they caught Nick's, while his tongue remained out his mouth with the contents of pleasure milky, while the bleachy smell caught Nick's nostrils that contracted in response. Nick's mind was still roaming the fulfilling train of orgasm with every throb, which in turn had weakened his resolve to the extent that he was just panting heavily against the seat, yet that was being replaced by the feeling of tiredness and the focus was slowly slipping away into the gust of time and space.

"Salty… that meat's bad for you, N…" Tristan slapped his lips with a grin and moved up to his full height with one of his paws reaching for Nick's chest where he rested his weight against, thus losing his greyness in the creamy delight. They stood like that, gems to gems waiting for the next move until Tristan began slowly moving closer and closer towards Nick's muzzle to which the smell and sight was starting to magnify with the dready feeling that his friend was going to do something very dislikeable, which manifested in stress with Nick's paws going for Tristan's chest to push him away but the young tod was visibly feeling unrestrained by the weak attempts derived from the pleasurable unloads from crimson flesh of fertility.

The idea of doing this was repulsing and the unnerving smell was helping up to that, yet another part of his mind that had been cradled in pleasure called forth for him to act and drown himself in this dirty act. But before he was able to properly put his paw before the intrusion and give himself a moment to breathe the suffocating air of need, both his wrists were grabbed and pushed against the back of the seat, while the long muzzle of his friend stood just mere paces before Nick's nose where their hot breaths mingled in an unstable rhythm of confidence and tension.

But Nick moved his head the other direction in a last attempt of stopping this as his body was drained of all will, yet he felt something to drop by his leg next the door with heat spreading in front of him, Tristan was on his knees on the same seat, while under him stood the draining red that was filling the contents of the knotter slowly, while the bulge in Tristan's pants had even seemed to have become bigger, or was that Nick's hazy imagination playing fantasies of preference? Tristan wiggled his jaw in an expression of discomfort, apparently from all the pampering done, and moved the heat of his firm body closer and closer, while mated fur around his mouth showed off the flushing deed Nick had done not even a minute ago.

Nick struggled to get himself free but sighed hard in forfeit, yet his jades could see the need for this to happen, a part of him wanted this to happen. Tristan's alabasters slowly bit into Nick's lip, then Tristan began pulling back as to straighten the shy muzzle in level, and it hurt to resist so Nick reluctantly did as forced, after which that same sticky tongue moved under Nick's lips as it tried to find entrance, while those grey paws of entrapment went around his head and kept him firmly in place in between the attempts of warm and strange infiltration.

Nick tried to pull away the grip but every second of his throbbing diminished the interest in fighting with his tightly shut mouth starting to slowly open to the lewd muzzle of his friend, which was finally permitted penetration that resulted in the taste of saltiness and the feel of stickiness, which got Nick's mouth to wrinkle in dislike finally, and him to seize the long muzzle of his friend and push it down hard with new effort from the distasteful kink of heated hormones and desires of intimacy.

"That's fucking filthy, dude! Spit that shit out…" Nick scolded in finality and slowly let go of the lowered muzzle that dripped contents right between Nick's legs. But as their muzzles were on the same height again, Tristan closed his mouth with a final lick and gulped, which got Nick to flinch and chase him away from the seat by pushing him off distastefully, furthermore Nick crossed his arms and tried to be angry but it was hard with the melting effects of his peak and the movement of liquid around the canals of his reproduction.

"Sooo… how was it?" came the unconfident voice of his friend besides him at whom Nick shot his hostile daggers.

"Fucking disgusting, dude!" The words had an immediate effect that got the dark-red tod's ears to fall down in par his long whiskers, and his paws to reach for his bushy tail instantly. Nick didn't realize how that had sounded until his heart squeezed in panic and got him to clarify at the sight of hurt before him after such a pleasurable experience with the end that was only meant to be described as such. "Not the head… ughm… the end, Tris…" The reaction wasn't sudden but at least Tristan didn't become more so sullen.

"Just thought… you'd like it… I'm sorry…" he clarified quietly and hugged his tail closer in shame of his boldness that had visibly went too far.

"Well, now you'd know for next time," Nick said in between another fulfilling throb and grinned his teeth suggestively at his gloomy friend who had just been between his legs not even a minute ago, something that Nick actually enjoyed feeling and seeing. Alas, the ending had caught him badly surprised but that he could overlook as a mistake from passion. Tristan's gloom fell instantly with a slow smile carpeting his surrounding moist lips that still had more of Nick than him, after which he dropped his defensive tail and _ahemed_ with a glance towards the outside noisy, from where soothing wind came and brushed their furs of youth.

"I think it's time to go…" Tristan pursed through the silence and rumblings of cars from the road behind them, yet that got Nick into a conundrum if he should heed his words and just twist the keys with the chain of pink. Tristan wasn't visibly expecting to be returned the pleasure which was in turn coursing through Nick's member still yet. Nick's greens moved towards the package that had reduced its size and sighed heatedly in hesitation. He had never done this and the lack of experience was pulling him back. Was it the same as licking shy folds? Did it taste bad? It certainly did to him when he had been kissed with his own juices…

Anyhow, he couldn't leave him hanging, to let this be one-sided and unfair even with fear's advice trying to make him accept this deal of strange relationship. He raised his paw to his eyes with the blood of his friend staining the purity of his voidy claws, which in turn got his nerves to dance anxiously in mix with the pleasure that kept the bay. He couldn't turn his back on this, he even wanted to do this even if his throat was contracting in a reflex of angst from putting his mouth on something like a red salty rod of a tod, a male...

"Strip," Nick said sternly to which Tristan's ears flicked and he turned around with the look of total confusion.

"Wh—"

"Do as I say," Nick growled out as his paw reached for Tristan's arm which he pulled towards the middle.

"It's unnecessary… wai— it's not a problem, N!" Tristan fussed weakly but Nick wasn't listening and pulled him even closer but their eyes didn't meet as Nick pushed his muzzle underneath Tristan's longer one and snaked under where the wound of claws was on the side of the dark-red and grey neck. He had missed damaging the beautiful collar but red had managed to reach the dark leather, with stains on the grey part of the fur having had suffered the same consequences. It still looked fresh tho and the throbs under his pelvis made his tongue to exit his salivating mouth.

No words came forth, Nick's spongy appendage reached the broken skin and metallic streaked across his buds of vision with a wince from his friend, who was audibly shuffling from above to Nick's amusement to which he continued pampering in dampness what he had caused with intrusive thoughts that appeared even more wild than his imagination had allowed previously. He was like a hungry vampire but this vampire sought to heal instead to kill, this vampire had its prey around his claws and teeth and heart… The thrill of the hunt, a hunt like no other.

As he had enough and moved back so he could look into the ambers of his friend, he noticed Tristan's boxers of grey that had many blueberries all around, which got Nick to actually laugh as his gaze trailed up where the shaky paws of his friend were trying to unbutton the few last ones keeping his grey chest decent, while the rest beneath showed gorgeous grey that would've seemed bleak to somebody else but not to the hungry jades of crave, not to those of seek. Nick glanced at his bloodied paw and then at Tristan's submissive position that was being laid out by his ears and exposed throat that gave even more space for the licks that had been everywhere there.

That got Nick to do something odd as his paw was moved close to the long muzzle of his friend who stopped at the last button with uncertainty, but as Tristan noticed his own red on the auburn paws, his tongue slowly licked the surface in an apologetic manner, which drove Nick insane in lust to give like he had received, while his predatory emeralds noticed a glistering trail close to the nose of his friend, a trail of his own linage he was filling into the knotter still in lesser of amounts.

Even with the idea of disgust roaming unchecked and hard, his friend licking his own blood from Nick's paw got the barriers crippled and he dived straight for a kiss that mingled in the tastes of both male predators by essence of entangle. Nick's teeth nudged the naïve flesh and nipped weak and hard to which he was receiving the same in an increasingly heated manner with the paws of the dark-redded tod going around Nick's neck and pulling him towards the other seat in disbalance.

Nick wanted to roll him around and skip what was the main objective but he still couldn't get himself to get to that stage even after everything that had went down, especially after the taste of his own seed which was no longer _that_ repulsing, with the routes furry around the purple nose now being clean and disgruntled by the long tongue of Nick. Tristan's shirt was fully open and hanged on the sides, while his pants were down his knees with the only accessories being those humorous boxers and the gleaming collar that was just dancing into Nick's eyes with attraction and a pulling force unexplainable.

A pull away that ended the stringy kisses came to be with a whimper from the young dark-red tod who failed his grip with his tail brushing off from Nick's back as he made the distance. The narrow neck and shoulders, the attractive collar and longer muzzle, the glowing ambers and long white whiskers, his thin stomach and flat chest, it was making Nick's instincts flare to jump in for the taking of the fox before him, to make him his even if those same instincts were meant for something else entirely and no such behaviour of unnatural disorder. But there wasn't that much space in the car of constriction so they had to make due with what was at paw.

Only one thing was missing and it was hiding under the boxers of bulge where the craved was hiding shy. Nick's claws made a motion down which got Tristan to hesitantly gulp and put his thumbs on both sides after which he slowly slid the cloth away from him which pulled onto the bulge down with exposure of its edges to Nick's thirsty eyes. The entrapment was lost and the red member flopped back into the grey underbelly of his friend who squirmed from definite sensitivity and bareness achieved.

His mind wasn't sure if the feeling was of fascination or utter embarrassment of just leering at the pole of sticky red from such a close distance, devouring the imagery and drinking in the scent of urgency that got out a throb harder than the previous to prickle down his groin to which his focus was lost for a small segment of a moment gone. Was it so strange that he actually found the crimson alluring, even if it didn't belong to him…

One thing was for sure, there was an exact same replica of male flesh between his friend's legs but this one was bigger than his own, which got his teeth to crush into another in jealousy and amusement at the same time, while the confidence that he once had began with, it began slowly dying because he didn't know how to exactly proceed, thus his defences sprung up instantly and got him to say, "A bit gifted, no? First the muzzle, then the tail… now your dick?! Tck-tck…" he slapped his mouth suggestively against Tristan's blushing cheeks that didn't seem to be able to absorb the flattery easily, they soaked it in to the reality of speechlessness.

Nick leaned down even closer to scrutinize the throbbing length while enjoying his own one which's intensity now seemed to have lowered considerably. The tapered tip was very foamy with soakness going down to the base where the bulge of Tristan's unseen knot hid, yet the foreskin fur didn't have a different shade like Nick's.

"You should do that dye… _darling_ ," Nick jested from above the risqué meat of fox and some sharp exhales, which sounded like chuckles, came from above the stalking predator's head. Nick sniffed deeply a few times around the sizable maleness but didn't detect anything but fox musk and heady arousal for mating that bled into his head like an inferno. That meant that Tristan had cleaned himself before they had met at the docks, he had came prepared if this was to actually happen…

 _Cheeky tod…_

But the taste, that hot and salty taste was nagging at his confidence, it was keeping his tongue to himself and stopping him from pleasuring his potential mate… Yea, that sounded alright actually. His paws that were on the edge of the seat moved in front and made a trail around Tristan's thigh and stomach that squeezed back in answer to the touch, while a weak _aahh_ came about from the young tod who hadn't peeled a word for some time now, Nick wanted to hear his stuttering as it'd be of great boost to his wavering confidence nearly-broken.

Nick's long tongue came out, and collected saliva began stickily-slow falling on the thick mass of fox where it mixed with the juices of his… mate and lagged on the sides and down towards the sheath from hence it had come out firstly and opportunistically in the search for pampering and attention needed. Nick sighed internally from the turmoil of repulsion and let his tongue slowly to reach the foxhood that was warm and spongy but there wasn't that bad amount of saltiness or hotness, the flavour was a bit sweet… syrupy-sweet... Maybe he was still being phased by his faded orgasm or was it the scent that had rewired his brain to mistake tastes and ideals?

His whole tongue coated the length in intimacy but all he felt was even more of that sweetness again… What the hell was this sorcery, this wasn't disgusting like his own… was this really because Tristan favoured green food to anything else? The paw that was pushing the muscle of Tristan's underbelly moved towards the tampered flesh and pushed under it as to get to the base with tackiness getting onto the auburn fur that still carried some spots of blood. This was fucking crazy for Nick's mind as his mouth actually felt eager to let this mass of foxhood inside as deep as possible, to have it inside of him…

If he went back some years and had told himself that he'd be doing this with his friend, his best friend in a car at a ledge overlooking the Rainforest District, he'd probably throw a fit and die from laughter at such an insane assumption that he'd be down for such intimate rides of transgressive immorality, especially with the mammal who he had grown up. Yet, here he was, his tongue over the oozing exit of the throbbing warmth and his mouth waiting for confirmation of letting the mass enter further, for the length of his mate to get inside a place he'd usually reserve only for eating and drinking and pretty much nothing else entirely.

But now, now what was going to be eaten was foxhood and what was going to be drank were the nectars of that same said, which finally got his switch to pluck and his mouth to move down as he firmly kept the length up with his dampened paw below. It managed to fully disappear inside his muzzle where it was pushing against the entrance of his throat that gagged to which he coughed and pushed away, thus exposing the lost now full of strings of saliva that glistered under the fuzzy light above.

His exhale that escaped through his nostrils was heady of musk and primal eroticism that got his lips to curl with a moan that was in the form of another hot breath, which ended in him repeating the motion down the hardness hot. His mouth became full to the end but this time he didn't take it all as he tried to stray away from gagging, serving his food over Tristan's crotch didn't sound very intimate… But with this motion, his teeth scraped the sensitive surface without him registering the fault, while his friend panted above him without an audible reaction.

His tongue moved around the constricted space of juices and pulled up the sugary coating up towards the leakage where light shone again as he tried to create a rhythm of pleasure but this time he felt pressure on one of his meaty ears which was tugged up in a rather uncomfortable way that was rather painful to the sides where tissue held it in place, it was enough to get his eyes widened and mouth to go away from that piece of meaty pride with a sweet lick of lips that had the gleeful essence of his mate, while his head angled up to meet a mingled expression of pleasure and pain, which got his brows to furrow.

"Nearly popped?" Nick jested through a soggy grin but received nothing more but a serious shake of a head that got his ears to fall in regret.

"No… you're scraping me with your teeth… they're pretty sharp…" Tristan answered quietly to which Nick's ears fell even lower in shame as he had thought that he had been doing a pretty decent work while he had actually failed in the beginning by bringing pain instead of contentment to his partner. "You haven't…?" the question that came next that was understandable to which Nick sighed sadly and motioned the answer in a negative, while contemplating if he should ask for tips even if his ego was struggling to beat his head in and mouth down, to try and improvise and somehow save his skin from humiliation even if the situation he was founding himself was humiliating enough if they were to be caught with their rockets out.

The paw holding his ear moved through the fur on his back and around the other side of his neck where it cupped gently his throat and pulled up away from the throbbing male shaft to which Nick gulped and almost whimpered in protest but the long muzzle of his friend got him to halt and just listen and look. "You twist the tongue in the form of the… member… so it won't touch your lower chompers," Tristan showed as he said by manipulating his tongue close to Nick muzzle with these circular motion that got it bending rather proficiently.

"Then you tweak it around as you nudge in towards the roof of your mouth… or you'll gag," Nick smiled awkwardly as that exactly had happened, "and then you repeat with other tricks you can try… just don't use teeth, it's not just a piece of meat!" Nick chuckled mischievously at the fluster on Tristan's cheeks and figuratively gulped down the information that had the familiar taste that was stretching down his paws that still held the hot flagpole of fox. Nick nodded obediently and gave a lick on the rim of Tristan's lip as he dived into the steaming meal that was ready again to be worshipped properly.

He readied his spongy muscle and moved it across the pointy tip as he slowly took it in with precision that was tasked of keeping his sharp incisors away from his friend's meat that wasn't for raw consumption in the literal sense, but only for consumption of pamper, affection and care, which he administered easily as the tampered tip reached the roof of his mouth and slid almost fully as his muzzle nearly glided to where his paw was, a paw that he removed as he wanted to take it all in, which resulted in his muzzle probing the end where grey fur brushed into his nose that gave off a cute squeeze which rattled his jaw a bit. Yet he couldn't still take it all, it was longer than his own muzzle, and the only way to force it in was if he moved it towards his throat as he had done in the exordium of failures.

But instead of a grunt or a pull, he heard a moan that lacked pain, it was a moan of pleasure with the paw around his throat squeezing instinctively as his own had done so when he was being seduced into ending, yet his friend's paw lacked the painful sting that his clipped claws preserved from happening, maybe this was why he had removed them in the first of places? Yet Nick actually wanted to be clawed painfully… bitten even more, he wanted pressure on himself which he had to vocalize into instructions.

And that was going to be done as he withdrew his hungry maw half and murmured the words, "Baite meh laik ya wann'mount meh," through a sucking motion that got the paw around his throat to drag but nothing changed to which Nick repeated himself again but angrily and noisily which this time caught the attention of the dark-red tod who narrowed his eyebrows together through unfocused pants of exhilaration. Yet that visibly didn't stop his mouth from lightly curling into mischievousness, while Nick plunged down yet again in vain attempts of taking it all.

"I can't underst— you've got somethi— something in your… ahhhh…. mout—" but his jaw snapped shut as Nick applied pressure with his canines onto the enlarged flesh which got Tristan silently to yelp and mutter excuses adorable as he caressed Nick's muzzle as to calm him down. Nick wasn't going to be fucked around with when in such a vulnerable position, at least the leverage part was pretty appropriately placed in such a convenient spot where usually tearing would be put forth as a way of habit if the behaviour above was not up to standard or satisfactional conditioning.

More sweetness coated the walls of his mouth and tongue as he continued to do the same with the tips received to try other ways with his drool-soaked appendage flooding his exhilarated mind and body, to which he was just going to try and knead around the pointy edge, but he felt pain around the back of his neck as the paw holding pressure round his throat went away and reached for the top of his head. The feeling of large needles dug into his pelt, and he accidently let himself fall entirely on the thick mass that succeeded in entering his throat with a fit of gags that got his belly convulsing. Liquid began trickling down his throat and some of it even managed to get into the duct of his lungs as he breathed in through the small of gap that was nearly plugged by the erect foxhood, while something else was climbing up in the need to protect.

Nick quickly pushed himself off with help of his paws that stood for support on Tristan's thighs, while his breath feverishly sought air with hard coughs that carried essence of leakage, while more pain spread around his neck with growls creeping around the confines of the poor car that _just_ had to be the place where the two tod's could exhibit their devotion and release of stress. This new sensation of pain and dominating growls got his passion to peek to which he reacted by shaking his head in disbelief and just tried to continue from hence he nearly suffocated… Death by giving head, that would've been humorous. Something else was tickling his libido of mind tho.

 _That's it… bite me damn hard!_

The pressure was increasing around his jugular with his heartbeat doing the same in the need for survival that his instincts were calling for, with him putting himself in the most vulnerable of situations where another male had his teeth around his highways of life that carried the enriched hot blood up his mind. He felt fear that got his eyes to water and claws to dig hard where they could, that being the car mat and Tristan's thigh which flexed in solidity at the reaction of self-preservation. This new drive to flee and save his pelt took hold of his mind and tried to act upon his body, yet he defied it with all the will present within his head to which the only side-effect was his heartbeat rising through the roof of the poor vehicle molested.

Nick's vision became sharp but that lasted just for a small moment as the pressure of those teeth was acting like turned valves over his jugular veins to which haziness entered his repeating motions of pleasure while the growls around his neck mingled with moans of excitement. Yea, he was definitely losing his breath as his lungs burned in the intensity of need to which his head fell down hard with his nose stinging from the harshness of the plunge. He had lost a moment of memory.

But then the pressure around his neck stopped and his insides filled with energy that fuelled the continuation of his mission to please his friend, his potential mate. Tristan was surely holding his ground even after he had went through the time of blue balls and oozing during his turn of pleasuring. But he had used his other paw and had done something to the spot beneath Nick's drained orbs for which there was no knowledge of how it looked or felt like doing it, his black and sharp claws were definitely going to poke something that he wasn't supposed to, thus he kept at it while increasing his pace of inflaming titillation. He didn't want to accidently make a cut there, it'd be just a total disaster and a total guilt point of history.

Tristan's stomach squeezed inwards and Nick felt the bulge of Tristan's knot to touch his teeth and that was his queue to get off the ride so he could miss the part where he didn't like participating in, but the pain flushed his body yet again when his shoulder burned under the intensity of bone against bone that went through the unbuttoned shirt's rim while a paw pushed from above and Nick was now muzzle-on with the knot of his friend who moaned through his teeth in an unseen aggression that had been asked of in the first of places.

The pain was piercing his collarbone in a slightly bloody manner, his breath was being taken but most importantly he felt a spurt of hotness to try and fly down his throat in the spiciness of sweetness and oozes of low salt with stickiness to which Nick gagged hard and tried to pull out, yet the paw above was holding him down and the hold on his shoulder was like a crowbar nestled firm. Yet, his repugnance from the act of having kits unloaded in his mouth got him to push very hard up after two more loads that he spat onto the blazing crimson meat.

His mouth disengaged from the hold and moved away in the search for a knotter while something sticky could be felt on his foot where the gas was, yet his eyes scanned as foxily as they could and noticed the small box of what he needed, yet Tristan's member just shot liquid after liquid into the air which got Nick to try and cover it with something other than his mouth which was his poor paw. But then Nick felt stimulation at his tail which buzzed a newer blush all around his body and got him to itch yet again, tho he growled at that as the mess was starting to take shape, nevertheless. Tristan just held onto that long and bushless appendage while smirking into the hostage shoulder like a clueless idiot with red around his alabaster teeth.

The pressure round his bone and skin faded stingingly and with great difficulty he got a knotter out the tricky box which he quickly pulled apart and muzzled the beast of his friend that wasn't listening to reason with one failed attempt that left clues on the dashboard, where the bobbing head of a doll toy elephant in white robes had the milky color falling off its face, a doll toy that represented, Maya, the daughter of God in the religion of Herbione. It was said that she was killed by predators while on her journey of saving all mammals of Earth with the mission of bringing them closer to God, her father and creator. Nick found the sight rather satirical but his anger was stronger than the tickling of laughter in his exhausted roots of life within.

He rose to his full height and glared with semen around his lips at Tristan who had even a darker shade of red around his head while panic and bashfulness had just taken him whole. Nick's eyes caught traces of the sweet gumminess on the upper half of the windshield, between Tristan's legs and all over his paw from where long strings were trying to fall into the search of what their job was supposed to be. The bleachy smell was everywhere in the venting car which's windows weren't enough to remove the scents of passion.

"S-sorry… carried away… really liked it… and… told me to bite you… just los— argh…" Tristan moaned through stutters as he squeezed his legs together between the sight of the filling knotter, while Nick remembered about his own as well, well… rather about the one that had fallen from his withdrawn erection and on the floor where it had spilled, and he had stepped over it to which he groaned in great irritation and shot a sharp glare at Tristan who was riding the train of orgasm but couldn't help himself but wince from the hostility present that loomed like a dark cloud incoming.

That was when Nick moved his adhesive paw to clean it off in Tristan's chest fur but was surprised by the agile catch that grabbed his wrist very tight. Nick was going to fight off the grip but then saw something loin-melting, something that got him to think that this tod was going to be the death of him… Tristan's mouth closed onto the sticky paw and began lapping up his own _materials_ which got Nick's eyelid to twitch and his stomach to flutter in newly arising arousal that was soon going to peek out of his furry sheath, despite the battle raged just some minutes ago.

The heat and smells in the car were just otherworldly, time was running out and they had created a big clusterfuck of a mess, which Tristan didn't seem to care much about as he was intently cleaning the auburn paw in gentle licks, a kinky side indulgence he seemed to be enjoying quite a lot. Nick wouldn't have been surprised if his friend had even _finished_ in his own private place of oral. Still, they had to move and Nick pulled his boxers with his free paw in par with his trousers which had definitely taken up some sultriness that had overtaken up the whole sole of his innocent foot.

A groan of desperate fury steamed out his rancid mouth that had been to places he hadn't believed it'd be ever. He pulled up his pants as best he could with his single paw and reached for one of the pockets from where he had tissues stored for just in case, well… this case wasn't ever planned in all the possible ongoing scenarios that had been present in the pot of imagination… The licks stopped that got Nick to glance at his insane friend who was leering glossily at him through sultry eyes to which Nick gulped in reaction to the look of more requirements untimely.

"Enough. Period!" Nick snapped as he pulled out tissues which he began administering around the spot where his trousers had taken a staining blow.

"You've got… some…" Tristan whispered gently while still staring at Nick's shorter muzzle to which he zeroed his eyes at the spot of interest but didn't notice anything. "There… no… pftt… ahhh… let me, N…" Tristan moved in with his red rocket going over his thigh but Nick's recoil back was weak and short. A gentle paw cupped the underside of Nick's creamy muzzle and the lavishing tongue of different tastes went around the underside of the edge of his muzzle from where tracks of white and weak greyish hugged the fleshy tongue of love.

Tristan was done after a few more careful touches that left disturbed fur in its wake but at least it didn't carry the properties of intimacy. "Mind doing that to the windshield and seat?" Nick asked with mockery as he passed his friend some tissues which he took with a lazy scoff and began getting to work before he pulled up his trousers and hid the red pole that still pumped out his fertility hot.

"Best day… of my life…" Tristan happily drew heavily as he put on his belt over the bulge that was going to remain for a few more minutes on fun, while tucking in his fully unbuttoned shirt in, which now had wrinkles on places it shouldn't have had. But none of the tods cared as they tried to get themselves decent for the trip ahead.

"Lest we push the deal, yea…" Nick added with a smile of no contrition as he himself was feeling incredible and a bit sleepy after this crazy sexual ride of pleasure. But just as he was to reach for the small spot of his puddle of finish, footsteps began closing in to his window and got every cell of his fur to stand on end as he dropped the tissue and tried to hide the mini-pool on the floor.

 _Please be a hobo… please be a hobo… of for fox's fuc—_

 _"_ Good afternoon, sirs… Officer Anitfer, Precinct Four. What're you two doing here? _"_ asked a male hippo who had now fully come into view close to the nearly-full opened window of the car. His shiny badge on his chest showed the initials ZPD with a black uniform that most officers used around Zootopia. Nick adopted the sleaziest of smiles ever done as he tried to find ways of steering away the issue that could arise if the cop was an asshole who could detain them for indecent exposure in public or even suspected prostitution, even if only one of those wasn't the case. The probably bias muncher wouldn't know better with his dull nose and single-minded brain!

"Good day to you, Sir. Looking very sharp!" Nick tried to add to the grovelling but that rather sounded like a taunt than truth as the hippo housed a rather stony expression definitely derived from the _intriguing_ day of patrolling around. Nick's greens glanced at Tristan who was giggling silently into one of his paws as he scrubbed the stain between his legs in the obscurity of his thigh. "Is there some kind of problem, Officer Anitfer," Nick asked with hints of shock and disbelief in his voice which was wobbling at the behaviour of his orgasmic friend who was acting out of character and rather… too odd for someone else who didn't know what had just happened in the car of opportunities.

"Received complaints of growlings and other strange sounds coming from this vehicle. What's going on in here?" he asked with a deep sniff that got him to slightly furrow his brows in confusion, while Nick rushed every brain cell to try and figure something out that wouldn't be humiliating and threatening to their day.

"Heated argument… Resolved it peacefully!"

"Riight… That blood on your shoulder from the peace?" the officer asked to which Nick's eyes widened and his paw reached for where Tristan had bitten him lastly, a touch he pulled back to view that showed him fresh blood. If his friend's teeth had been sharper… the idea flushed him yet again but he shook his head in recomposure.

"The seal… of the deal," Tristan chuckled out as his head moved towards the officer with an impish grin, to which Nick saw his crimson neck where he had left his mark of affection, after which he slowly moved his head towards the officer who was now not detached but frowning at what he had seen.

"That's what, _peacemaking_ assaults?" The words hit hard as even if they were mocking, they rather held a lot of weight to the actual reality of what had happened, tho they were rather lovemaking nips…

"Hazardous… accidents?" Nick wheezed through his teeth and lowered ears as he couldn't see anything that could repair the situation but the truth that was greatly uncomfortable for him to acknowledge. The officer tho seemed to have had enough as he released the frustration of steam through his nose and straightened his back as he moved back from the vehicle, now towering over the car. Nick had to make the copper to see without saying it directly.

"Step out of the vehicle a—"

"Officer… p-please, come take another look…" Nick pleaded as he peeked out his head that exposed his foxy eyes upon which he forced a manifesting glow of cuteness at the officer who had already taken a step back, while a blank stare sang for some uncomfortable moments until he yielded and leaned back to his previous position but now he supported himself on the frame of the window and the car lightly gave down with the new weight disliked.

"What am I to look, fox? That one is drugged. The car smells off and both of you are half-naked. Give me a reason not to search this car," the officer hostilely stated through this murderous glare which had the patient impatience covering the layer of liquidness of his eyes, while Nick just tried and tried to find the right words in the right order that would conclude in the right action of decision to the enforcer of the law at whom they were now depending on.

"Yea, Nicky! Give him a reason, you tease!" Tristan giggled out as he pulled his knee and put his long muzzle over it, while he outright watched in amusement at both Nick and the officer who was rather unamused and shocked at the same time, while the annoyance actually began moving away from the hippo's thick brows of doubt. Nick knew that the decision was there to be made and the officer didn't really care to try anymore with his chances, this was turning into a very serious situation. If he thought Tristan was drugged, there was possibility of weapons and that could end with a face on the ground or a long sleep at worst.

"He isn't… drugged…" Nick tried with embarrassment that came with a blush that was obscured by his red fur. The hippo grunted with a jesting smirk as if taunting the fox to further try in futile attempts of manipulation, which was true for reasons that Nick deemed: necessary. Huh, there was no other way but the truth, was there? At least he knew the officer would feel more flustered than both of them combined and multiplied by five… or ten.

"Yea? What th—"

"Look at… his… ahm… _trousers_ …" Nick interjected by slowly putting forth the words of humiliation, one after another with his neck going lower and lower in the need to protect himself from the confused stare and the burning flush around his whole frame of flesh and intimacy. The officer was outright petrified now, as if his body had turned into stone of timelessness. But then his lifelessness moved towards Tristan who put both his paws in the air in surrender and lowered his knee down which exposed the bulge hidden by his navy obscurers of decency. The officer's slowly-wavering gaze went at the dashboard where the small box of knotters was, then at the poor bobbing doll who had taken an unwilling bath, and then back at Nick at whom he sent a look of shaken resolve that gave more than any words could've mustered meaning to.

"Oh…" His brown eyes glanced again at the mischievous dark-red tod and came back at Nick for the umpteen. "You two…?" he asked as he pointed his hoofy finger to which Nick nodded in unweighed embarrassment, while the officer stood still in digestion for some moments, until he did so repeatingly with the same qualities that showed off through the collapse of his professional attitude. "Uhm… can I see your IDs?" It was like a sudden change of subject that came like a required change of direction, it sounded robotic and Nick's ears found no real meaning in those words but the logical one he had deducted, while the officer appeared… not actually there.

"Sure, Officer. Let me find it, kinda messy…" Nick voiced and reached for his pocket where his identification was but the officer surely must've seen his damp paw and absorbed his absently-minded words, while the cogs in that prey brain appeared to have at last found the missing link in the questions that didn't really have to be answered with words. The hippo coughed harshly and moved away from the window, to which the suspension extended into normality and the car bounced around freely.

"On the other hoof… Don't think it'll be necessary… you two be on your way… Wrap it up what you're arguing about… get out of here," the officer concluded with a last attempt of command and superiority that was infested with uncomfortableness, while Nick didn't know if he was to be ecstatic or guiltily flustered to the bone marrow. Well, he let go to what his body chose to do.

"Thank you a lot, Officer! I'll remember to send my gratitude to your department!" Nick voiced loudly out the window with his usual slick voice to which the officer turned around and nervously waved his paws dismissively in a manner that got Nick to snort down in recoil and to get into the car hastily.

"Grati-ti-titude," Tristan chomped the word in mockery through another fit of giggles to which Nick sighed with the effects of stressful relief and rubbed the top of his muzzle in the upcoming calm after the storm that had passed, for now. He couldn't believe their luck that the mammal in blue was a decent mammal and took the situation without any problem, more like embarrassment on having barged in the messiness of such _activities._ He could've made a big problem out of it but why? Only assholes did that and Nick was glad that the world wasn't full of them, despite his experience showing otherwise.

"Didn't you pump yourself dry, _officaw_ blueberries?" Nick joked with a claw going under Tristan's belt and tugging onto the cloth demeaningly to which the effect was a grumpy huff and a protective tail hitting the forearm of the transgressor.

"Not after that… _hazardous_ … nip," Tristan teased, as they both began rolling the windows up while intently staring at each other, straight-faced. The moment the car shut the fading smells of attraction and sex in, their mouths curled into grins and they both exploded in uncontrollable laughter of decibels piercing and delightful.

 _Laughter real and deep,_

 _Not even close to the quality of cheap._

 _Derived from bottled passion,_

 _That ended in this mind-boggling fashion._

 _A fashion wrongful and immoral,_

 _Put intimately between pillars oral._

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	15. Opportunities

**Chapter Fifteen**

 **Opportunities**

Colors of nature everywhere mixed in the sturdiness of brown bark and fallen leaves that carpeted the slippery roads, sidewalks and other surfaces reached. The wide trunks of kapoks and coast redwood were riddling the scenery around the rather quiet road with vines around the tall bodies of the oxygen-infusing giants who towered high in the sky, and casting shade with their majestic crows that in the autumn would look like thin gold paper, yet autumn never could reach this place of control and eternity chosen by those with the rightful tools of power.

Tree houses were everywhere around those same giants and inside their bodies as well, while bridges of rope and wood moved left and right with mammals passing through them. Water was practically far and wide as the humidity was just almost at a peak, while small rivers flowed around lower levels and linked into where swampiness rested with lilies and other fauna that had taken refuge tight amidst this breathtaking biome of wilderness and tameness, tho needing just small initiations for the balance to be wobbled and cracked open.

Rain didn't seem to have much of a kick today as it lightly dropped on the lively windshield of a red coupe car that was moving fast through the thick curtains of hidden evaporation. The wheel of the vehicle hit a rock that was conveniently waiting for a victim on the worsening road that seemed to be reaching its end where a large part of the swamp echoed in frog choirs and mosquito frenzies that chanted a single unintelligible word: Food!

The inside of the car crunched hard from the impact which got Nick's teeth to snap in reflex, while his friend was holding onto the roof handle with a sheer expression of haunt as Nick drove them closer and closer to the end where the uneven asphalt changed into gravel which the rear-wheeled car spat from behind, something that would've definitely translated into disaster if somebody was idiotic enough to follow behind with intent of outdriving the small red speeder.

Nick's mind was plagued in prayers that nothing else would happen to the already stained car as Nas would just make him wish he was never born, due to him promising her that he needed it to get to the DMW (Department of Mammal Vehicles) for some… documents. Yet, he couldn't move his foot away from the gas as that'd mean they would miss their transport that was the only way of getting to where they were heading and that said transport was already blazing fire close to the roofed construction that had a long wooden dock where they had to have had went across 10 minutes ago…

The spaces for parking were clear, some cars here and there with one specific car even being completely overtaken by vines and other vegetation that the forest had ordered to advance and retake the lost. Nick's eyes chose the closest spot to the front of the sheltered walkway, and he hit the brakes as hard as he could as the car sped through the opening with puddles agitated forced to flee their comfortable holes of home.

The screeches of brakes in mix with the yelps of his blood-drained friend spaced through the surroundings, while the wheel Nick was handling wasn't listening to him as the tires tried to slip into a drift that was going to definitely send them into the swamps where they'd dine with the frogs, crocs and other creatures that had found a home in this new and colorful world. The rear of the car tried to give way into an uncontrollable spin and nearly grazed a slumbering jeep's front bumper of blue steel but luck had a say in this fateful day, it wasn't usually pushy but today it appeared needy to show superiority over the two tods' lives.

Nick's heart squeezed like his paws did over the wheel, while his feet were floating in stress with crippling stingy nerves that wanted to stop this disaster but he wasn't seeing anything he could do, yet he did when he rotated the wheel to the other side in resistance to the calamity which managed to get the car on the straight path, while the speed lowered to the point where it ceased existing, with something slipping from behind him and falling in between the seats where his own tail was and it took the blow that smashed his nerves in agony and got him to wheeze _this_ whimper of misery.

He managed to make the stop perfectly in the marked space just in front of the sign _No Swimming Allowed!_ to which he pulled away his tail from the entrapment that had been the briefcase, yet his leg moved away from the clutch and the car sputtered death because it was still in gear. That surely had grinded the transmission but he didn't care anymore and just dropped his head on the wheel in relief and burning pain but the horn protested loudly that got another surge of panic to flush his body again, while his head slowly realised the fault for which he didn't have time to murmur himself at, even if his tail had electrified from stem to tip.

With a harsh turn around, his jades noticed Tristan still holding for the assist grip on the ceiling with shakes that followed down towards his body, yet he didn't find that amusing as the fire in the distance was making his claws to tap the now unsticky floor. Nick's paw flung towards the rear deck behind him and pulled down both the coats that were blocking the rear-view mirror pretty heftily, which got the coats to spread in all directions in the middle, to which he quickly grabbed his and threw the other at his still-shocked friend's lap.

"Come on, pine-fox!" Nick blurted out as he anxiously tried to put his paws through the sleeves in the small space of the extinguishing warmth of the car. Nick knew that in this rush they could surely forget something but then again, what were they even carrying more than that briefcase and their own bodies? Yea, the briefcase, the one that tried to crush his tail into a pancake … Oh wait, and the umbrella on the rear deck, behind his head rest that he had strategically snatched cheap for exactly this of an occasion.

Pulling the briefcase out of the middle with ease, the patters of rain on the ceiling increased which lowered Nick's ears as the possibility of leakage getting through the black rectangle was a very bad prospect to happen due to the documents not having been put in punched pockets… "We w-were… g-going to… _d-die_ …" Tristan whispered dreadfully that got Nick to notice him being half done in encasing himself in the final piece of navy outfit.

"Don't be a drama queer," the comment phased out Tristan's shock that turned into a glare which stopped Nick's hasty preparations for the exit.

"You drove like a savage idiot!"

"Thanks to you!"

"Wh— you said there was time— I didn't ask you to."

"Exactly my point," Nick returned in a grin that got Tristan's hard scowl to falter in nervousness and his determination to be stomped to which he put on the rest of the coat and straightened out his lapels with a hard yank that exhibited his frustration on the matter. Nick looked forward into the swampiness where the drops of many fell with an illusion that made the water seem alive. His nostrils pulled in air with trails of likeable scents and exhaled sharply with his mind deciding finally the moment with traces of sweetness around his tongue, "Let's get it started."

His paw reached for the door and he pushed it open, which vacuumed in humidity that mixed in with the car's air and got his nose to twitch, yet the drops of rain reached for his wrist and got his exit to increase in haste to which the briefcase hit the door and got stuck as he tried to shut it absent-mindedly, so his lips curled up and he fixed the mistake as fast as possible, while the key to the car agilely went into the lock and almost twisted shut if not for a grey realization that stood out through the rainy window and inside the car itself, waiting patiently to be forgotten and left alone in the dryness and cosy surroundings.

The suitcase was thrown on the roof of the car with fragments of Tristan exiting on the other side as quickly as possible, while Nick pulled open the door to which the keys jingled inside the lock and he reached between the headrest to pull the grey umbrella that he had intended to keep him safe in this creepy district of uncomfortableness. It almost got stuck in between the two headrests but he wasn't going to let himself be bullied by such inconviniences thus he twisted and pulled out the protector of dryness out with a disbalanced in and out.

It was quickly opened as it came outside and the coldness stopped hitting him all over his body and especially muzzle, to which he finally closed the door and locked but then his eyes noticed Tristan who was looking at him anxiously and huddled shoulders close, which meant one thing, time was running out. Nick flung the keys across to his friend who managed to barely catch them and lock the other side of the door, while Nick grabbed the damp briefcase and began plopping through puddles made from the uneven gravel of the unfinished parking space.

The squelching coolness bathed his auburn feet while drops fell hopelessly from the rim of the umbrella and tiresomely on his trousers by luck, yet he pressed on with the same vigor as failure was hanging by threads off his eye lashes. The overgrown dock which's wooden roofs had sprouts happily leafing away in harmony with the big leaves of elephant ear plants, which were being caressed gently by the soothing breeze, while boats below were submerged enough in evident composure to the environment. Many of those looked like homes with the tarps around the windows and mastheads and additional construction welded or fitted, some of it even looked like Happytown's living situation…

But Nick didn't even peel a glance at those details, the main goal was before him in the form of a big basket with a giant-orange balloon above that, while in the middle it had the signs of flames, the dancing and fading colors of warmth and attraction. They were increasing in size and in sound as the turbulent burning bounced around the region, to which Nick just began running.

" _Wait up!_ " came a desperate yell from behind him that sounded rather distant but Nick knew that his friend would be able to keep up, the streets hadn't given him a chance not to be, at least not purely. Nick finally reached the base of the dock where dryness was actually present with trails of paw and hoof steps on the sides and middle. He withdrew the umbrella that had been keeping him slower and just rushed forwards like hell with drops of moisture falling off his fur and clothes and grey protector.

The moldy wood beneath him creaked defiantly, yet it wasn't overgrown like the rest of the supports that kept the roof over him from plummeting down aimlessly, altho leaves and twigs riddled parts unclean, while small tubing with wires could be seen in spots of disrepair that usually were meant to be hidden. His muscles heaved his body amidst the intoxication from his adrenaline infusion. They had to make it, the balloon was getting closer but a vine hanging from the top pushed against his panting muzzle and tried to stuck itself between his front incisors to which his mouth opened ever so more with a bitter taste, while his body almost toppled onto the moldy floor below his racing feet.

The only thing keeping destiny-wronged mammals from meeting their doom were the railings green which created that safe barrier from plummeting into swampiness of different life. The basket above the heightened end of the dock unsheltered kept those inside in place, who appeared to be quite a few of different sizes and belongings. But the door to the convenient district transport was shut and the roaring fire was now burning hard with hotness filling the air of the balloon above and getting levitation to take its slow but sure course, which made Nick's fur to try and stand on end but in futility to the dampness residing onto it.

Tiredness wasn't yet able to come to terms into his body due to its suppression and all he had to do was to take a leap and dig his claws into the knitted surface of the basket. He knew they could make it even if the balloon was gaining distance from the closing peak of the dock's higher platform. The elevation began increasing suddenly and rain again began hitting his nose and ears, yet he couldn't open the umbrella in his paw as that'd just be the worst choice possible. The overtaken railing on his sides almost hid the distance from the water but there were some spots of degrading control.

Those spots would usually make a mammal gulp if they had fears, yet Nick's aim and goals were before him, which got Nick's claws to dig harder into the wooden elevation between the space of the planks. The slope became even which gave view to the end where more barriers stood with labels electronical, which showed the next arrival that was to be in an hour, time that seemed incredibly long and impossible to wait out. It needn't happen, they were there and the jump was possible due to him being and agile fox and all, Tristan as well…

 _Tris…_

Nick's head shot in a glance as for assurance to himself that the plan would be met in success. But the moment his eyes grazed the _dust_ behind him was the moment a whirlwind of emptiness bludgeoned forth his mind and limbs, with speed faltering, and being entirely crushed, when his paws grabbed the viny end that saved him from a swim with the crocs, while a view of missed opportunities hanged and flew away, burning into the distance from his remorseful jades. Oh, what had they done? Was the need for bodily expression of primal feelings more important than the prospect of changing their ways for the best…

The disappointment aimed felt different, it didn't hold only sorrow and discouragement but somehow… a touch of ireful maddening at the idea that maybe there was a possibility for them to hoist themselves above the stereotypes? Such ludicrous thinking, fate had shown him yet again the impossibility of such a desire, the futility in trying to be something else than a shifty fox…

But then again, hadn't fate given him something else, something more, something even more strangely special? He glued off his angry eyes that softened under the weight of his sigh and the discoloured green waters and brown tall trees were replaced by a panting fox coming from below the elevated dock. Tristan didn't have an umbrella and looked rather disgruntled with his fur hugging his skin from heaviness, tho Nick was going through the same fate as he had in some way surrendered to the fate of rain and loss.

Such a sight would've been entertaining if not for his seed of destructiveness that had sprouted in the center of his soul due to failure met head on. Frowny acceptance to the written fate came about as he opened the grey umbrella above his head because the iciness streaking from the drops was really aggravating as hell for his hot vessel of flesh and blood. But instead of waiting for Tristan to come to him, he did so instead at a faster and bouncier pace, tho he had to grab his own tail in front of him as it stuck outside the protection of the above like an unresponsive limb.

The shrill dismay on his friend's face spiked the feverish ire down to just sheer disappointment without inclusion of any additions. The panting red-furred tod was going to pass by if Nick hadn't gotten into his way forcefully in collision between the two bodies damp, which winded Nick down and got his feet to stumble backwards in the loss of his ground by he pushed himself towards Tristan and shielded him from the annoying patter of water above where small feathers of light pierced through the giant green leaves of the massive trees.

"We… w-we m-misse— missed it!?" Tristan whimpered through pants which in turn were wanted by Nick's own body but he was forcing himself contained, while the body of his shivering friend pushed harder against as if his eyes didn't believe the sight of opportunities escaping from below their noses. His own paws were pre-occupied while the tail again resonated the coldness of the raindrops as it was out of reach from safety, thus the prior was repeated. Nick had to tell him that it was over, to rid him of the shocked trance… "We c-ca— could it be…"

But a _thunk_ came to life next to Nick as he dropped the briefcase and grabbed Tristan around the neck in a binding embrace with his head tightly pushing against Tristan's to which the young tod tried to move away but Nick soothed even closer firmly. "Is alright… another time'll come, pal…" But Tristan struggled hard and hints of desperate growls came to Nick's ears, while his nose was kinda failing of reading the mood due to the constant humidity with incredible amounts of swampiness that reeked around the elevated platform.

His better judgement got him to lightly release the hold with Tristan stumbling away and into the rankly rain that at least had lowered a tiny fraction, to which Nick tried to get him under the protection of his fur-saver but Tristan took a step back as if Nick was the devil, or was he seeing himself as such? "Who knows when that'll be! All because I thought that today was the perfect moment… because of my selfishness— we ar— It's my damn fault, god dammit!" he cried out through painful emotions with Nick being speechless and lackluster regarding reactions.

Was Tristan regretting having divulged his feelings or in what they had indulged themselves in? Sure, it had evidently cost them a great opportunity but that didn't mean another wasn't going to come with time… There was no need for rage and feed guilt about this. The realization released the squeezing off his chest and the roaming of unease was stopped with the qualities of his frown softening into one of light sadness. "Tris— hey!" Nick tried to grab Tristan's attention but the young tod turned his back and rushed off hence he came with paws pulling down on his flattened ears.

But Nick wasn't having any of that, so he dashed quick behind and grabbed the soggy-white tip of his friend's slumped tail who immediately stopped and harshly turned to meet Nick with paws in the air expressing the danger of his claws, at Tristan's part it was nothing as his were short and trimmed, but then again his lips were curled exposed of white with the illusion of sharp and whiskers long, while he growled in a way that got Nick's hackles to rise and him to almost recoil away but he frowned defiantly and kept himself fixated, yet his own tail went in front from instinct.

"Leave me alone!" Tristan snapped loudly and took a step forward threateningly but immediately after, as his ambers moved around Nick's jades, his lips fell down with his whiskers and his ire just vanished, while Nick slightly felt something deep inside his heart in the form of a painful prickle that labored his breath noticeable only for him. He knew that his closest friend didn't mean that and that it was in the heat of the moment with the energies of conflict being directed at Nick because of his interference to try and stop them.

It wasn't like they didn't talk to each other like that, right now it just felt deeply real and personal with a nagging for Nick to protect himself and just let go but with Tristan's reaction to his own behaviour, he decided to not take the easy way out. "Hey… hey, come here," Nick pleaded in a light tug of the sogginess that had erased the bushiness of his friend's tail that now looked more like Nick's own natural one underdeveloped. The softness that Nick was showing got Tristan's reluctance to rid him of the shackles of wariness and to take slow steps towards the space of safety from the rain.

"Come here, that's right," Nick reassured softly as Tristan pushed his sodden-long muzzle into Nick's chest but his paws remained down, while Nick put his own around Tristan's back and pulled him closer to himself. "You just wanted the umbrella, is that it?" Nick joked lightly to which Tristan snorted and grabbed hold of Nick's coat while pushing himself even closer with his own tail going around them both. A strange sight indeed, yet who was there to see and did it even matter? A sharp conclusion ripped the answer into finality and Nick put his muzzle on top Tristan's lowered head, while his paw soothed the damp fur around Tristan's hackles.

"I didn't me—"

"You're an asshole, I know," Nick interjected humorously to which Tristan chuckled awkwardly. The boats around the dock quietly shuffled above the water, mammals could be seen moving in the distance from bridges of tree to tree while the sky was hidden by the thick green above, yet it was somehow directed into hollow spots in the giant trees where the reflection called upon the faltering darkness. Nick liked the embrace after the divulged today but his wishes didn't appear to be enough for fate to do so.

"Lets… sorry, N… ehm… just go back…" Tristan murmured as he glanced away with disappointment evidently aimed at himself to which Nick sighed and was to start heading back when his ears went up and his mind backtracked to something almost forgotten.

"Yea..." Nick nudged Tristan's shoulder and pointed with his claws towards the poor briefcase wet that was dropped forsaken in front the labels where they had missed their chance of a better future. Yet Nick's mistake didn't seem to do much of a change but only an annoyed sigh that got the two foxes to go closer to the object of past interest, but that didn't mean that Nick had surrendered, his mind was still trying to find some way to get to where they were heading, even if the area was unreachable by road, but only air or…

The moment he grabbed the case off the moldy planks was when his eyes shot around the swamp and caught sight of something that got his raging heart to squeeze in excitement with his restricted disappointment changing into one of glee for the impending, so he put his paw, holding the umbrella, around Tristan's neck and steered him to the side of the platform where parked bicycles of different sizes stood locked to a long rack, while a camera above on one wooden lamp post stood vigilant and watched carefully for any misdoings that shady mammals would try and incite, which surely two foxes weren't of any _suspicion_ at all...

"Nah, dude… c'mon. I don't want to… please," Tristan begged miserably but Nick was having none of it and harshly pushed him towards the edge where the hanging overgrowth of railing was.

"Never liked this district. Too much rain if you will, _euh_ ," Nick began with repulsion as he trapped Tristan against the damp barrier and moved his head closer with scrutiny at the giant trees that were populating the swampy area. It took a bit of frog choir for a response of words to come forth.

"At least it's not salty and full of smog," Tristan murmured and moved closer into Nick's cheek while the patters of rain dropped over the grey shield above their heads of orange fluff.

"I'd prefer that over soaked fur and _friendly_ animals in the water," Nick continued the small talk as he looked over the lilies and discoloured green where he knew some ancient beasts were lurking under the disguise of big fish, ancient beasts that had survived for more than anyone else on that matter, and the image them got Nick's own predatory instincts to appear like a parody misplaced in the form of consternation new that was of consistency to the natural order of dominance.

"I don't think the animals are scary… mammals are way worse, N," Tristan countered dolefully with a glance held for a moment as to show his troubles, while Nick's tongue moved around his shorter muzzle in attempts of trying to add something that would ease upon his friend's depressing state but the pessimistic words that came out only showed how Tristan truly felt, which wouldn't have been a problem if it were coming from himself only and not from his friend who usually was the one around…

"You're just being a moody tod, cheer up!" Nick poked Tristan's neck and shook him playfully to which Tristan groaned in frustration to the manner of handling and huddled his shoulders closer to himself with his head and whiskers moving further down. Small waves came below the dock that shooed the lilies away with the opportunity coming at a passage to Nick's ridiculous grin of certainty.

It was an average-sized ship which mostly consisted of a container in front where trash was scattered in a mountainous pile, while at the stern was the bridgehouse high, where the blinds were dropped and the mammal moving the vessel floating couldn't be glanced at, while the deck itself was clear apart from a few mammals on the other side of the ship itself.

"Avast, ye fox!" Nick chuckled aloud while waiting for an opportune moment to do what was on his mind, while Tristan's gawking at the moving vessel seemed to have had a petrifying effect.

"Ar— wh— you insane?!" But Nick was having none of that as he tck-tcked patronizingly and tried to see how this was going to play out. The ship was going to cross very close to them as the passage between the platform and the large tree on the other side was kinda narrow. Alas, the captain had definitely done this many times, otherwise they wouldn't be risking getting sued by the government. Or worse, damaging their own ship.

"Move your sweet rump," Nick ordered and pushed Tristan to climb over the railing and onto the edge, while eyeing the vessel below that had already passed half of its length by them. Tho Tristan struggled against Nick's wishes, it seemed that he was accepting some part of the insane suggestion that was scrapped in an instant equal to the time it'd take for a neuron to send a signal forth.

"I don— it's k-kinda high, d-dude…" Tristan whimpered as he held onto support.

"Aim for the net," Nick reassured without giving the dark-red tod any time to contemplate, and pushed hard against his friend's back which got Tristan to slip his grip from the wood and to fall down with a yelp and lackless voice that had surely been so by his shock new, yet Nick knew that this was the only way to get Tristan down there due to him not being a fox of danger like Nick himself. Of course, that didn't mean that his own heart was devoid of emotion as the cry of putrid dismay had sneaked across his valves and stung him hard with anxiety towards if something was to go wrong and if this had been the right thing to do.

But ropes creaked from below to the twitch of ears and Nick saw Tristan hitting the mark perfectly head on with a tail electrified despite the soakness incarnate. He shot a sigh of relief and threw his holstered umbrella and briefcase close to Tristan but the umbrella didn't reach and fell on the planked surface with a thud below, while Nick climbed quickly on the edge but failed to catch the moment, the moment when he could jump safely onto that same wide net. Rain was now hitting over his head and body, the edge of the planked platform felt slippery and the vessel of need-to-board was now a fallacy probable.

 _Crap, crap, crap!_

Hesitation, limb-freezing hesitation festered in his brain of control because now he had only the rear of the deck to jump down onto and it was narrow with the bridgehouse taking most the space there. If he did the jump wrong, he could break something, like a spine or leg, even fall into the swamp… There was no time, he was going to miss his chance and leave his friend alone on that course-unknown ship.

His knees lowered and sprung him into a leap above the misty green below, while gravitation pulled him down and down towards the moving mass of steel, rope, rubber and trash. Seconds stretched thin and everything was happening too fast to which he felt as if he was diving at a speed insane, but it didn't seem that he was to reach the deck and his paws rowed the air desperately as if trying to make him fly up to safety, which would've appeared to any non-senile mammal like a ludicrous idea.

Images of him underneath that slimey-looking sludge shot primal horror through him in jolts and his mind sought for anything to help him, to save him. But the jump was already made. His body collided with the rim of the deck outside which pushed all the air out of him in daze, his paws managed to grab the rim but even with his sharpened black claws, the slipperiness caught him and his body slid off from his only chance of staying whole, while his mind roamed the darkest darkness of his imagination.

Claws obsidian scraped the white paint in trails uneven while Nick whimpered in shrill as he felt his body fall down towards doom but then the cold surface changed, and something else touched him, something coarse and wet. His eyes opened instantly and his paws grabbed the object of salvation in a flash, a thick brown rope that was hanging from the deck fixated. Nick's fall stopped and his body swung towards the moving mass of ship to which he used his legs to stop an ultimate collision frontal.

 _Holy Vindicator…_

The grouchy rain kept bashing him but this time it acted as a reducer of heat, yet he wasn't out of danger as the blades of the ship below rumbled the water, and his feet became more slippery against the oiled surface watery and cold. He could do it, he should be able to do it… But before he was to start trying and probably slip into trouble, a very sweetly-familiar voice came from above in a whispery tone but enough to be caught by his raised ears and the rumbling of the big engine inside.

"Nick! You alright?!" Nick looked up aghast and caught Tristan's extremely worried expression that lacked any contents of indignation of the fact that he had been pushed down without prior knowledge or consent. Nick would've definitely been mad if he were in his pants, despite actually having been there not long ago, yet the vulnerability of the position he had put himself in was draining his abilities to overthink and he begged whatever God there was for Tristan to just pull him up, thus he nodded with a gulp in emptiness of words. "Ho— I'll get you. Slowly, N!"

The rope began moving slowly and his feet's claws dug more lines into the paint from the strain he was putting, yet the steady raise towards safety was keeping him balanced. Thanks to the disability of Tristan holding up a grudge, and definitely for the prospect of them getting to their destination on time… Whatever it was, he couldn't shy away from the feeling of thankfulness of having such a good friend and... it still wasn't something of certainty and he didn't want to think about it yet, it was just confusing him lot. His foot at that moment slipped and his claws scraped the metal so hard that his bone ached in this agony piercing which was as if his nerves had been scrunched for a second small and now they pulsated down around.

Nick's paws were gripping the rope with dear life as it swung backwards into the freedom of space, while his head shot below at the foamy green which was awaiting for him hungrily as to savor this new and special ingredient called: suited and wet fox. Vegetation scattered around the ship as it ploughed a path forward in selfishness of its own needs, caring less for those unsuspecting and those unable. Nick's hot breaths filled the air with more suffocation and his dread was so heavy that it was as if it were pulling him down with every second by, but it all crashed when his vessel hit the body of the ship again and he nearly dropped the thick rope safe from instinctive lack of reason. Still, he didn't swing backwards as something acted as a deterrent from above.

His legs dug in again as he shivered from the cramps in his muscles and adrenal gland's overdraft of chemicals that were eating up his stability of carefulness as his claws scraped and scraped as he moved up and up, but this time it appeared that nothing as such were to happen as the hungry propellers down were getting distant and the growls of cylinders and consumption of fuel was a leftover of vibrations that were resonating through the frame of ship. The small anchor became visible on the side with red and white liferings scattered down and around the top side of its frame, how could they really help if you were to fall down in this moss-infested shithole of mud and mosquitos and other beasts hidden?!

Reaching the top, Tristan offered his grey paw towards Nick who took it instantly yet with some hints of shame present only to his eyes, his knee tho caught the edge in a nasty way and shot pain through his leg to which he groaned loudly, only to be shushed by Tristan who helped him off the edge and into the moving ship that was now utterly surrounded by water and tall trees filled with life, lights and movement.

"Quiet… the crew went down deck. Almost saw me, those three," Tristan whispered strongly as he and Nick moved closer to the bridgehouse in the shadows of its height and protection of the rain. There was the black briefcase laying against the steel wall with the umbrella a bit damaged on the side. Nick knew that his leg was going to hurt a lot after some time but right now the effects were minimal, but he sat on the case while keeping his tail in front of him. Tristan did the same on the narrow spot, which was never meant to act as a chair and now their bodies were glued together with this discomfort and awkwardness that Nick was going through because of that said shame that came.

"What were you thinking, Piberius!" Tristan growled out of nowhere and moved his longer muzzle under Nick's which got him to gulp and trail his eyes elsewhere as their bodies were pushing even harder now against one another in the tight space the case was giving off involuntarily. Tristan had used Nick's middle name, something that had happened just one or two times in their time of knowing each other, which got him to remain speechless not only because of the worried and scolding tone and use of names, but because of the lack of actual bitterness but full-on blown worry that radiated from below his muzzle in the aura of warmth and care.

"I didn't see another way to get there, sorry!" Nick answered regretfully but Tristan pushed his muzzle against Nick's throat now, with inhales cooling the fur and exhales touching his creamy fur with mist, while Tristan's paw grabbed the side of Nick's neck and pulled rather hard.

"Why did you risk your life, you dumbass! You could've fallen there. You know the risks!" Tristan was now mad at him for risking his own life, not about being pushed against his will and that Nick had forced them into a position of uncertainty greater than the one before? The hell was wrong with this tod…

"I'm the least of anyone's worries. Climb out of my ass," Nick returned and pushed Tristan's muzzle away as he felt the vulnerability all around him in this constricted spot where the chance of being found and thrown like trash was as high as the trees around them. Nick didn't want to react as such towards Tristan but his breath had caught fire and he was at loss of smart words to protect him, thus the only way of saving himself was to be rudely out of character, which could be excused by what he had nearly fell into.

Both didn't move away from underneath the now-rugged umbrella, they still touched bodies but both their tails stood between them like barriers that showed a certain iciness that hung around the air as if to catch the annoying drops of liquid life of sprout. Nick wanted to show his appreciation, his gratefulness for having such loyalty given but that dread from vulnerability, that damn overprotectiveness for himself, it was eating all his attempts, it was… painful.

"You always become so distant… when it's about you. Why can't you just stop trying and just trust me with your problems without me trying to drill into your head…" Tristan lamented through an exhausted gaze and moved his head away from Nick's bafflement. "It's so… exhausting…" His paws crossed in front and downcastness befell over him like a shroud, while Nick just gawked at him between conflicting decisions that were bashing onto one another for finality, yet it was hard for him, it always was since his days of devastation upon his innocence.

The reason for it being hard was, in a simplified way, that he just didn't want to burden anyone with his issues, especially someone for whom he cared about. He always tried to resolve what was given to him for unwilling consumption without pulling others into the same hole with him, it was out of selflessness that had the exact form of hidden selfishness due to the moto for self-preservation by not showing weakness to others, no matter who.

Yet with his actions he was causing unintentional harm which was evident upon his friend's self who was sulking extremely due to being bashed away even when having the luxury of being close, extremely close. He couldn't understand why there had to be a conundrum of contradiction within everything which always was like a double-edged sword that you couldn't holster any way and anyhow. His blood boiled harder under the coolness of the district and the bitterness in his mouth got him to spit out the ship as if casting out a tumor large.

They were here because they had worked together, they were here because they had expressed deeper feelings than previously known. Nick had been shown another way from the one he had taken to be the only and truly working, he had been given hope for something more. And how was his mind reacting? By keeping the old and defensive mechanism of protectiveness that was needed for his success on the streets and life itself as it had shown. Rooting out such an old habit, it was like breaking his legs and trying to walk again…

"You know… I'm not going to change, right? At least not soon," Nick began strongly with a mutter at the end due to his hesitation at divulging his intentions of at least trying for Tristan's sake, who instantly met the gaze of contact needed. "We both know that change is slow, gradual. Takes a lot of time. Like in your case, bro," Nick said to which Tristan's reaction was one of a blush and bashfulness that got him to lower his head.

"But look how far you've come. Both of us. Together." Nick moved his tail away from between them and pushed his rump closer to Tristan's, while his paw moved behind and pulled his shoulder, which resulted in their heads colliding cheek to cheek with both muzzles pointing at the foamy waters in the distance below, while the dock from hence they had been was amiss to their eyes and gone into the journey sailed.

"Sorry… I stepped over the line," Tristan murmured within the intimate position, while the eyes between their muzzles looked into one another shyly but selflessly in need.

"You should do it more often!" Nick piped up and moved away as joviality managed to find a way in through the silty dam to which Tristan only nodded with an uncertain chuckle. Nick's back relaxed onto the steel and moist wall behind him and he sighed into the view before him that would slowly change from trees of different shades or houses of different positions and forms. Strangely interesting were the words he picked as appropriate.

"Uhm… what are you going to do if this works out?" Tristan asked after some time bathed in the song of the ship's engine and bubbling of water. It wasn't expected but it was actually engaging as to what he was really going to do if this… no… after this successfully passed, unless the ship headed towards somewhere else with a turn, which would be the worst case scenario. And because nothing was coming up, he decided to buy himself some precious time and not seem ridiculous to his friend, not that he'd care but… he liked to be on top.

"Back at ya, bro," Nick countered with a grin that got Tristan to snort in annoyance and to lean the same way onto the cold surface with his muzzle relaxing into dreamy rest. It was rather amusing with the glistering ruby in front his neck in combination with his longer than normal muzzle, it made him look rather… attractive to the eyes that roamed in intrigue, until they had to go towards the ambers energetic as to not cause confusion and a change of topic, yet a twitch of whiskers got him to understand that he had failed but not enough to initiate that change.

"Probably move out to somewhere in Savanna Central… somewhere clean, safe and glamorous?" Tristan laid onto the table and moved his needy snout towards Nick as to probably see his reaction, which Nick himself lacked due to expecting this to come. Even if both their lives were tied to that area of Happytown, even if somehow its greyness and destabilization were making one wretch inside in disgust, there was this other side that the mind called… Home. But Savanna Central, a place like the one described? A bit far-fetched.

"Not a bad idea, Tris. Tho it ain't gonna be easy, prices and all. Tax income forms, employment… the moment they find out where you're from, criminal convictions, being a fox… we both know," Nick concluded with a sadly-dejected smile that came to be on its own as he awaited Tristan's disappointment of his crazy idea but nothing was coming, more like more was incoming as the young tod rubbed his paws hesitantly between his legs and dropped his soaked tail from between them at last.

"Yea… well I could use a paw… maybe we cooooould… both find that place? Together?" Tristan finished starry-eyed and with great anticipation that had leaked through his light voice. But it was the last word that had the speechless effect on Nick as it had pierced his shirt, fur and skin and bones and had resided itself around his heart that throbbed somewhat happily to the proposition new and tempting.

Had he just implied what he had? He wanted them to live together. It wouldn't have had the same impression if not for the exciting moments at the car, he'd have just brushed it off as a perfect opportunity for a roomymate. But now it meant more than that, it actually seemed insane in the light of sweetness that he had never tasted before. Unless he was talking about the sti—

 _Shut up, filthy head!_

Distractions aside, the offer got him a bit mushy and that led to that same alarm trying to take over as to shield his emotions yet again. It was true tho, together they'd be able to find a way and establish the seed of this… it wasn't really a fantasy, more like a goal, a hard goal that sought success to be reaped in time that could be reduced, it only needed his acceptance to the truth of this, to these fearful and anxious decisions that were making his tongue roam the sharpness of his fangs inside as if that spongy flesh was trying to find a hole in the reasoning done, a hole that'd create the excuse that he'd use as to deflect the proposition sugarful...

"Ehh… I don't know, Tris… I actually have frequently fantasized of living away from everyone, without mammals around me. In the wild with the commodities of today… kinda envy those mammals at Podunks," he tried to dodge as to make Tristan to forget about it as he knew that Tristan wasn't one to probe when met with failure at first, just who he was. But what Nick had said wasn't false, he truly wanted to get away from other mammals, specifically from society.

A tip he had been given in the near past had made him go out the city and into the Meadowlands as to find an abandoned house with profitable equipment inside. The trip he did with some helping paws had left in him this sense of freedom and great attachment to the wilderness as it lacked the noise of civilization, it lacked the suffocation of the many mammals all around. What it didn't lack was green, blue and… this relief? Maybe his animalistic side wanted this, this what was taken from him, from all mammals. The imposition of civilization and brainwashing of the modern age, the brainwashing conducted by the government's systems and ways of established-structural life.

"Oh… okay..." the long muzzle moved down in despair and Nick believed that it was over, that it was finished. And then, Tristan's ambers filled Nick's eyes with intensity, "but you can give _us_ a try, while trying to find that place?! Right, Nick?" Tristan desperately tried again as he grabbed Nicks auburn paw and put it inside his grey ones that squeezed gently to which Nick's chest tightened and his eyes felt this pressure that he cursed away with his great capabilities of control. He couldn't say it yet but what he could say was that he was cherishing this greatly. And he was being offered even more without anything wanted in return, that was chipping relentlessly at him to which his shield came back in full force.

"That wouuuld mean… more time with me. More corruption!" he wheezed through a fake smile at Tristan who scoffed disapprovingly and shot him a look that was actually full of mischief, it got Nick's already uncollared shirt to feel tight and the surface of the briefcase to be too small. His paw was pulled closer to the gap between Tristan's thighs and the long muzzle of his gleaming friend moved closer towards his own to which the emotions in his body erupted in energy, anxiety and heat of heats.

"I'll live with that, heh," Tristan whispered and the last snap of vision Nick saw was the glistering ruby under the long muzzle and the trembling ambers of his friend and twitchy whiskers white. After that it was the sensation of affection that spread around the front of his lips and towards the base slowly, while he pushed into it with closed jades. The scent of his friend filled his nose with the sensation of slickness going around the rim of his side teeth, until that long muzzle pushed under his throat and nipped the sensitive skin beneath, which erupted a wag of tails.

 _I could get used to this…_

The rain continued falling slowly, the ship endured on its course that seemed to be exactly where both foxes wanted it to be, the sailors minded their own business definitely from the hate of the foul smell that was coming from the front of the big container, the trees towered high and the animals in the swamps sang their songs of different uses in wait to the insects that'd fall prey in trodden places of danger amidst more hidden secrets, which were obscured by vegetation and green, while amidst the middle were the two tods under the atmosphere warm, atmosphere which both were cherishing in this moment great that could even be seen as an unconventional…

Date.

* * *

"Come on, bushy tail, this is it!" Nick shouted from the top of the spiral wooden steps that had been going around one of the tall trees that their destination had led them to. At least the surface under the tree wasn't being bathed in rain drops otherwise it would've been pretty slippery and frustrating. He had claws on his feet but they weren't that reliable when met with extreme conditions of artificial means, especially with this nagging pain in his foot that had been a repercussion of leap of fares. He had passed quite some doors and windows in the tree itself with lights hanging from above those frames of entrances and exits.

" _Wait… ahhh, I'm coming!_ " came the distant shout from actually below the stairs he had reached, which got Nick to chuckle and smooth the fur on top his muzzle while his feet travelled to the edge where the keeper of safety was in the tinges of viny green and hidden brown underneath. His paws grabbed the damp leaves and his head moved above the railing to a view that succeeded in taking away his steamy breath.

It was a harbour that resembled the one at Happytown but it was definitely way smaller in the form of a bay with surroundings with great contrast to the district of toxicity that was his homeplace altogether. Giant vines were hanging over the bay with the trees forming something like a wall with slits in between that were riddled with bridges, buildings and other modifications undescribed.

There was that same hot air balloon that was climbing up from the lower levels and towards a platform where he was sure he and Tristan had to be if they hadn't missed the wretched timetable, which meant that they were even early. The platform had another idle air balloon tho and that lowered his ears, while his eyes caught a mass of mammals there that began climbing the convenient baskets of this transport.

He looked up at the blue sky, which was visible from the hole the crows of the healthy trees were allowing, trees that all resembled perfection, as if modified genetically to be possibly most attractive and stable in health and size. Most of the time the sky couldn't be seen as the thick green just seemed to want dominance and constant humidity. He was going to say that the district was pretty cool but this constant dripping and raining, it was just making his tail go between his legs in dissatisfaction most of the moments, even those shared with his now-intimate partner.

He heard steps behind him but then his eyes caught a sight of several mammals exiting the housing from the tree to which he sighed impatiently and began musing in his head of his. Tristan surely lacked on endurance as he didn't have to run around the streets like Nick, tho that was actually a good thing as Nick never wanted his friend to muddle into dangerous situations that could just sprung in the matter of seconds. Weak legs meant being caught. Being caught meant a very bad day or a last one at that.

His black claws drummed the green leaves with his eyes zeroing on a vessel that were attracted by the sound of its horn that echoed around the bay with a high pitch that had scared the fur out of him when he and Tristan were hiding at the rear of that same vessel of foul-smelling trash. At least that had plucked them out of their affectionate closeness and given them the sight that they had to jump ship if not to be caught. The good thing was that the water was no more green but in a shade of dark ink.

Well, they had been caught when they had tried to exit through the dock but being foxes and smaller than the crew that was hustling to work, they managed to slip through their paws and hooves and get off the dangerous spot they had been at. After that it was a rather uneventfully-arguable climb which was surely filled with interesting sights of how technology was keeping the place living, breathing and functioning. The machinery was so well hidden, it was disguised into the trees, buildings, roads and sidewalks. Practically everywhere, Nick wouldn't even be surprised if it were in the air, maybe those insects were in fact small drones? Okay, that sounded insane…

On top of that, it was very clean on this island that was part of the many, which were riddled around the Rainforest District. Sure there were patches of leaves or dirt on the path but it was pretty normal, while the air actually felt blissful, it felt fresh and rich and understanding to the lungs, unlike that of Happytown where every breath served as a tickle that would result in a sneeze and yellow sputum of disgust and rarely, solidity.

" _He— Excuse m— hey!_ " the panicked voice of his friend came from down the stairs and what Nick's gaze caught was his friend almost getting trampled by one of the largest mammals that had exited the complex, yet no reaction came from the tall and wide oafs. Nothing out of the ordinary. Still, anyone small was deemed as unimportant for anyone's carefulness or at least attention. They walked wherever they wanted and didn't even bother to look at their feet, it got his claws to ruin the perfect shapes of the leaves in animosity towards those who nearly hurt his friend, his partner and someone way more.

The young fox stumbled as quickly as possible towards Nick and collapsed just before him with pants exceeding the medium of normality. Well, Tristan shouldn't have ran but could he blame him, Tristan had panicked and had lost all self-confidence to the threat over his life to which the only response was the one to flee. Oh, didn't Nick know that all too well, a bit too well for his well-being and mental cohesion.

Nick reached for the briefcase and umbrella that Tristan was holding pinned to the woody floor and moved them aside, after which he put both his paws around his partner's sides and pulled up with a groan that was from the dead weight his friend had turned to from the exhaustion. Hot breath immediately met Nick's face and the scent of staleness that came from Tristan's mouth. Heh, neither had drank any water. The whole district was full of water tho but there was no drive for thirst, more like no time to peel off. At least the scent wasn't foul, just disinteresting, unlike at the Happytown harbour.

 _Tut-tut. Admirations later._

"Coat… off," Tristan panted through and tried to reach for his buttons but Nick swatted his paw away harshly.

"I know, buddy. Just endure," Nick pestered and eyed his friend from bottom to top to which he realized that Tristan was looking exactly like when Nick had helped him at Happytown, even after the steamy journey in the car and the bigger portion of exposed fur and other attributes of color. But then his ears flinched at the direction of the railing and his eyes glanced at a creature that kinda made his toes to prickle in readiness.

It was flying and had these black leathery wings that looked like canvas sails that were from the end of its arms to the end of its legs' ankles, while its rounded head resembled one of a demon, yet the visor was betrayed by its hazel eyes. Its legs touched a hanging vine and the creature dangled down in a fluid motion with the fully spread wings of its back, where the shade was light and vessels of life could be noticed in a root-like fashion. The creature lowered one of its legs, where black claws in the shape of hooks were and turned around to face the two quizzed foxes.

It was a bat but Nick hadn't seen a bat like this one, it was… different. It was wearing something like a one-piece suit of dark green and light grey below the waist. But the clothing was way different as the bat's wings were firmly attached to the body and were making it impossible for normal clothes to be worn. There were these leathery folds around the frame of its front body, exactly at the base of the gentle side of its wings, while two straps went around both sides of its curious head and behind its back as it ended between its legs and close to the belt where special slots for buttons stood and where the straps were currently put into. Surely decency was put into balance and it gave Nick a sense of admiration for the mammal.

It was definitely one of the bigger ones but even at full height dangling from above, Nick could see that it was at least a head or more underneath his own foxy body but then the bat licked its lips that gave view to some pretty sharp teeth that Nick knew were able to pierce skin pretty easily as bats' most primal and primary source of life was blood. The bat folded its intimidating-wide wings and made some very low sounds that resembled ticking for a few moments until they stopped and the ambience of the jungle overpowered the surroundings.

"Hey?" Nick finally said as he was surely getting uncomfortable, while Tristan hadn't even registered that they had been joined by a peculiar mammal of aerial capabilities. The bat's head angled itself a bit and its nose took in air several times.

"Wh'ch'ya two looking for?" the bat asked in a somewhat high-pitched tone and Nick figured that it was a female, yet he could be wrong. His deductions were hard as some species looked the same to his eyes. Hell, other mammals had told him that foxes were too but he could always spot the differences in his own species… But it was hell of a hassle to do so with others. Maybe his answer had already been answered in that contemplation? Maybe.

"Whatever comes and goes," Nick answered with words meant to fend off the mammal who surely wanted something from them. But when he talked again, Tristan's ears had managed to catch on and Nick saw his eyes move towards the hanging bat to which he reacted instantly and, with a yelp, moved around Nick and hid behind his back in cower, to which Nick wanted to drown himself in amusement but the idea that someone else was going to be a participant in that, who didn't harbour feelings of friendship, it got his mouth to keep on the fake smile and his reaction to remain one of nothingness. All the while, he knew why Tristan was acting as such and it wasn't a colorful story.

"A bat, Nick! You know them, hit it with the case!" Tristan whispered in Nick's ears but because the bat reacted instantly as she opened the cocoon she had arranged herself into, Nick was sure that all of those words had been heard. After all, those mammals had exceptional hearing capabilities. But instead of flying off, the bat reached for one of her pouches that were attached neatly on her belt and from there came out a rounded and freshly-looking tangerine that she played around in her fingers' grip which were just in the middle of each of her wings' arms.

"I'm Betty. Just a fruit bat, sweeties," she mingled with a slightly sharp voice and put the fruit in her mouth where the sharp incisors dug into the helpless orange with juices beginning to streak down towards the ground, to which she disengaged her teeth and pulled out her fleshy tongue that sucked on the coming sweetness. A fruit bat, Nick knew that those weren't like the regular ones, yet that didn't help him much from staring at the teeth of this random mammal of curiosity.

"Okay… Betty? Have a nice snack," Nick tried to cut off her attempt at talking with them as Tristan's fears were still present with the shakes of his paws on the cloth of Nick's coat. His paw grabbed the briefcase from the ground and he tried to just walk away with nothing more and nothing less. But persistence came to be.

"Sure. Wha'ch'ya two sweethearts up to?" she asked with the voice going through the sides of his back and stopping him dead in his tracks, while Tristan pulled forward on Nick's paw as to get him going but Nick was going to be honest with himself, the bat had gotten to him.

"Not hanging from trees, that's for sure, _sweetheart_!" he smacked as his body turned around to face Betty who even snorted as she removed a part of the pulp of the poor fruit. Why did he and Tristan had to earn such suspicion when just walking around, when actually wanting do something the right way? Who was she to meddle into their own personal business. "You came here just to harass us?" he spat through a growl despite Tristan's attempts from behind and whispers to just let it go.

"Nah, love…" Betty countered somewhat in a tone of puzzlement and slight embarrassment, "wanted to give'ya… something, _else_ ," she finished talking and dug into the nectar of her treat while Nick stood with an opened mouth and failing attempts of realizing what she had meant until he linked the dots and frowned as he pulled his reluctant friend next to him and crossed his arms.

"Let me get this straight," Nick began as he shook his head in confusion, "you saw us both walking through here and decided that you're going to just trust us with that _something else_. Sounds like bullshit to me… _love_ ," he mocked in the end which got the bat to spit out more pulp but in an ireful manner.

"Just trying me luck, _Nicky_ ," she returned coyly to which Nick scoffed and glanced at Tristan who visibly didn't want to join in as he was fully letting Nick handle it, and the fact that he was just terrified of bats due to experience life had marked him a victim of.

"Either it's a setup, or you're sloppy," Nick mused aloud in an attempt to get the bat speechless, which would be so if he had truly caught onto her plan, not that she wouldn't be able to hide the truth, but it'd show up to his experienced-enough eyes. But her reaction was one of slight distress as her voice shot through the air a bit higher with her next of words.

"Neither! I need the help and it's going to be good'f all of us."

"As if you don't have any friends to help you out… Pft, come on, bro," Nick tried to shut the bat off as he turned around with Tristan by his side but then rustling got his ears to flinch and the feeling of wind passing by him, with hints of strong flapping sounds that came into the manifestation of the same bat that got both to stop as she got in their way with… was there some despair in her expression? And there were these feathers that were attached to the rim of the top of her wings, strangely interesting…

"It can't be with mals I'know. I'll fill ya in, y'just have t'accept, foxies," she tried again, while nectar from her treat fell from her smaller muzzle in a drip.

"Why do you even think that we'd even want to do any of it, because we're foxes?"

"Ugh, stereotypes ain't 'xactly wrong, love," she smirked widely, which made Nick's paw to raise itself in the air with a finger pointing at her and a step taken closer but then he halted as his sneer just failed at the realization that she was somehow right, that her assumption wasn't that far away from the truth of the matters and how the world really worked, how the world created its own truth that it used as a replacement and condition to the personal choice, that with that would become empty and stale. Nick's confidence just crumbled and he took that step back in defeat with lowered ears… What was the point of arguing something that was just… pointless…

"You're wrong, we aren't who you believe we are. Seek someone else, let's go, N," Tristan suddenly snapped out of nowhere even with the hints of wobbliness around his frame to which Nick just stared at him in shock as to the sharp change, as if Tristan hated the sole idea that foxes were all impure and corrupt, as if he was the shield to keep Nick from entering those muddy waters of regress. It made Nick's heart melt and his confidence to bloom anew.

But then the bat suddenly dropped to the ground with a light thump that signaled that either she did it with great skill or just her body was very light itself, it made Nick to reluctantly keep his position even with Tristan's harsh pulls around the sleeve of his coat that called for haste and a disengage from the mammal-winged. Betty was on all fours at first and moved closer to Nick like an ancient pterodactyl but then she stopped before him and her height rose to Nick's upper chest where her head looked up at the impatient green.

She reached for one of her pouches again and Nick's instincts of living on the streets shouted at him to back off but his eyes saw a camera close to the tree in the middle of the platform they were on, thus he remained in composure and calmness, at least from outside. Her long wing's edge nearly touched him as she reached and pulled what seemed to be a very thin piece of paper that was… ripped from a newspaper?

"If you change your mind, you can ca—" but as she extended her wing to pass on the small piece of information, Nick's paw was swatted hard by Tristan who was shaken with infuriation and his body moved between Nick and the bat in a confident manner that shocked Nick out of his fur as despite Tristan's issues with those species, he was currently standing so close to her that she even felt uncomfortable and took a step away in a slight instinctive manner.

"We're going to be late, c'mon," he ordered and tried again to pull at Nick but something was making him stay, as if he was seeing an opportunity that his friend was blind to, it was keeping him firm and emotionless to the mammal closest to him and his behaviour sparked a reaction that was in the form of a growl from Tristan who helplessly crossed his arms around himself and turned around as if to show his disapproval at the situation. He was actually trying to assert himself, it was rather annoying but at the same time, it was making Nick smile internally.

"Ughh…" Betty sighed and reached for another pouch from where Nick's eyes saw a very familiar color of blue that made his mind to search for dopamine within his confines. She grabbed a wingful of the tasty fruit and hesitantly reached her wing again at Nick who browed in uncertainty and at that she rolled her eyes with a grating sigh and grabbed one that she plopped into her mouth as to show that no trickery was present, especially with poison or drugs. "For your time, darling. Ya can krinkle it'w fuzzy-puss there," she sassed playfully through a snort.

Nick pondered if he should risk it and take the unsuspected heavenly gift but when she gulped and licked her lips without any visible contents of leftovers within the insides of her sharp mouth, he sighed in defeat and reached inside his coat from where he pulled a red pawkerchief that he opened and lowered close to the wing of Betty who smiled in vibrance and dropped the wingful into his paw, but his quick eyes caught a piece out of place, that same piece of paper that went out of view as a blueberry buried it underneath.

Without any warning, with a strong push of her leathery extensions, she pulled herself off the ground and looked down at both foxes with a sort of amusement. "Cya'en, gorgeous," she cooed while looking at Tristan in a seductive way, which he caught from the corner of his eyes with his tail becoming even taller as if to show his disinterest at even acknowledging the bat, who reacted by sending a wink at Nick and then flapping away into the vastness of the Rainforest District.

He reached for the heaven incarnate that lay in his red cloth and quickly popped several in his salivating maw, while his legs carried him to Tristan with slight pain again but he brushed it off with the feeling of joy that swam in his mouth. Tristan was still keeping his backside in view, thus Nick decided to be an asshole and just walked into him with his foot going between Tristan's legs and getting him to silently yelp forward in surprise as Nick's knee had pushed against a rather sensitive spot between nerves, which he knew full well, maybe a bit too well?

"Bewies?" Nick asked through a nasty munch but the only response was a hard glare to which he only sighed in exasperation, "I widn't agwee to notwhin'!" he tried to articulate but the tastiness inside his maw was getting his words mumbled, thus he gulped but in lateness to a good say.

"She gave you food. When they give you something, it's because they ready you for what they want. And you took it!" Those sentences made Nick freeze and just appear in timelessness in front of his edgy and expectant friend. It was true, you were given something usually because either something was going to be asked of you or attention was sought, which of course would lead to asking something or using that company in the form of that something as a goal of loneliness-away. But he couldn't fall into that manipulative trap, his mind would catch on the line of thread too easily and taking some heaven into his maw wouldn't hurt him anyhow.

"I know, just love blueberries, pal... Want some?" Nick asked warmly but the scoff that came answered his question pretty well, while Tristan didn't even stay in the same spot more than a second as he took off towards their destination with paws in his pockets and ears and whiskers down. At least he was forcefully keeping his bushy tail up. The problem was that it wouldn't hurt him but it surely did hurt Tristan and that got Nick's ears to lower in gloom in par.

 _Ugh, why can't I be the angry one?_

Nick wrapped the remaining blue in his red cloth and stashed it in the inside pocket of his coat, while wondering about the bat's offer and the possible opportunity of some needed money. But then came Tristan's words about them being more than that, being more than shifty foxes and actual clean citizens of the prosperous Mammalia.

If he wasn't doing this for society, he could do it for his closest _friend_ and the rest of the mammals he cared for.

Yea, that belief tasted luscious.

That was… a fair deal.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	16. Bartering

**Chapter Sixteen**

 **Bartering**

Nick and Tristan had passed onto several other platforms of the bay called Purei's Retreat in the Rainforest District. They had crossed some bridges and asked around for specific directions, until they were met with one big'n'wide red cedar tree that towered over the rest like an ancient God, but this God was a bit malformed at the top, as if lightning had struck it in the past, the cut being deep with charcoal faded around its edges where the fire once had festered unclean, while all around the body were dark vines of hairs spread ugly down Earth's crust in a greedy and relentless onslaught for the race of time to ply by in the touch of fulfilment wicked to nutritionless soil damp. It was a strangler fig that even by being a parasite would rely on birds to be spread across like a disease. The tall red cedar was half dead and alive at the same time, while many windows and smaller platforms towered up and around those scars of nature's touch upon that which wasn't considered _hers_.

It appeared that the infestation of roots that were like parasites had been left like this for some apparent reason, despite the windows' parts being clean of obscurity at most sections. The supposed entrance was overtaken on both sides, where these roots had created something like a spiral pergola, but not just a pergola but a natural, one that was wild and rather intimidating at that. Underneath it were these lamps that breathed light all around as it was rather gloomy given, because the only source of vision was at the bay, which wasn't enough to let light illuminate everywhere. Such was life in the Rainforest District, dark, damp and rather… primordial. The layers of dead leaves could be visible on the sides where plants grew in average sizes, due to receiving enough light from the bright orbs of sunlight that were the buzzing white, which was a plague for the misguided over-sized insects deserving and victimized.

There were no indicators that this was it, no labels, no nothing. Just the tinted windows of the front and the solid glass doors, which opened with a formal tapir, who was slightly taller than them, exiting in a hurry as he tried to fix his tie. But the mammal was not much of interest to Nick, as he glimpsed over at Tristan, whose anxiety could be even tasted if one tried harder. The humidity here wasn't that bad as it wasn't trapped like before they had entered the bay. The suffocation before had been so bad that every breath was like drinking steam. It would've been good if it were just that, yet the big mosquitos that were trying to take a bite also played in the discomfort of _civilization_. As Nick thought about it, this giant near-husk of a tree wasn't towering over, it was entrenched by these parasites of timber and thickness, with the gap lost being plugged by other opportunists smaller.

Nick knew that this day was important for both of them, but the overthinking was going to bring them only troubles, thus he tried to boost the confidence, but not before gawking at an ant colony in between the giant leaves of the plants around, that sure was one big kingdom of insects that was experiencing a Golden Age, it got his mind to picture himself stepping accidently in there and getting those warriors of millions around his fur… It got him to gulp jittery and step slightly towards Tristan, with a mind that tried to defuse the tension by aiming itself at a subject of distraction.

"Whatever happens, confidence, Tris. Make confidence your vixen! Awight?" Nick cheered and closed into the intimate space of his friend, who shyly took an amber glance and nodded with a slow inhale that was actually aimed at Nick's direction. He wasn't evidently mad anymore about Nick thinking of accepting Betty's offer. Well, he was… but then he had even apologized for his behaviour that wasn't ever normal of him, as with trying to take charge, yet Nick knew that this was how it was and that his friend wasn't that strong-willed. That was why he could see himself as his protector, while Tristan shielded Nick from the other threats, threats too complicated for Nick to skirt around. It all came to… mutual understanding and benefits.

Nick took in the scents of jungle, water and other mammals, whose essence lingered in the lighter air, especially the small amount of musk that escaped Tristan… They began moving up the trippy stairs of overtaken roots that he was sure once belonged to the insides of the tree they were going to enter, as it was visible that it had been drilled into in the past as to make the entrance. The sides of the stairs looked pawcrafted with the shapes of leaves, turtles and crocodiles, which appeared really exquisite to Nick's eyes, while the rest of the overgrowth was left to take and entangle. It gave the feeling as if this was natural to nature itself, despite the mark of mammality skulking high above and all around the buzzing electronics.

Little to no vegetation was able to survive under these shadows thick and unhospitable, the layers of dead plants were coating the earth with moss festered and many ferns. Mushrooms, being the little moisture-lovers themselves, had taken much of the populace and were prospering fully in their kingdom of rot and moisture dark. Of course, the smell of expired meaty fungus was a bad one due to it almost reaching the same notes of decaying flesh, it made Nick to scrunch his nose and sidestep away from the edges of the path.

His footing was nearly lost when his fingers got him to almost stumble from the uneven footing onto where a branch had surely grown in the past, now the spot being just a bump with lifelessness meant only to be stepped upon. He was talking about confidence but was feeling it waning with every step taken, thus he pondered upon their appearance, the implications and the deal that was to be made. What if his decisions got them to fail at this… opportunity? What if he had gotten something wrong.

 _No, doubt leads to mistakes. Mistakes lead to failure. This must work!_

They got to the sliding glass doors, which didn't even offer them a reflection, while the size was meant for even the tallest of species. It looked rather uninviting to Nick, while his peep at his friend spoke the same feelings he was harbouring. With his free paw that wasn't holding the briefcase, he reached for Tristan's and gently grabbed it, which got the young tod's attention.

"Together," Nick asserted with indescribable warmth that moved through his limb and into Tristan, who nodded with a floating smile of accomplished reassurance.

"Together," he repeated positively and their paws disengaged, after which both fixed their clothes and smoothed their fur until all was done, with Nick taking the first step that got the motion sensor above to make the doors, with darkish-brown frames, slide open, all under the eyes of watchful security cameras and his friend from behind, who walked smugly with his bushy tail high up.

The air that came out and touched the fur around Nick's cheeks wasn't suffocating, it was neither too cold nor too warm, it was perfect. The surroundings visible inside were so new and strange and unique. Everything was from wood, even the additional architecture had the same shades that all mingled in harmony. There were no hanging cables from the ceiling or walls, no cracks on the smooth wooden surface that had the giant rings of age of the tree itself, rings which surely weren't genuine as most was grown and cultivated artificially with the aid of technology advanced.

They were immediately met with a burly muskox who didn't look very friendly, with his stoic expression and huge body that transcended over the two foxes. But Nick didn't let himself be intimidated and stood tall himself with his tail that he despised the appearance of, but didn't show such mindset to anyone but himself, as that was the most important part of the vision confidence shown.

The muskox was wearing a full green uniform which really made contrast with the brown fur, thus getting him to look like a tree with his clothes being the breathers of oxygen, while the accessories around his belt, which surely were weapons and tools of communication, acted as the technology integrated into the surroundings of the tree as well. He came close at a respectable distance, eyed them from ears to toes, but his scrutiny remained more time on Tristan, who was perfectly keeping it together, even adding some sort of a defiant scowl that Nick's eyes were eating up with pride.

"Reason for visit?" the ox asked gruffly in a resonating tone.

"Business," both foxes answered in unison as if they had trained for this moment, but neither looked at the other as they intently stared at the taller mammal, whose suspicion faded after some additional moments that the sound of the ventilation around the space filled. Nick knew that the guard was greatly suspicious because they both were foxes, while their appearance spoke trouble as he had decided to put a touch of cockiness, which in turn carried the possibility of adding up to the threat of more possibility of deceit.

The guard moved close to them and gestured up with his paws, to which Nick rolled his eyes and put the briefcase on the floor and spread his paws in the air. The ox pulled out a tool from his belt's holster and began moving it round Nick's body slowly. Nick didn't like having the mammal so close to him, especially with a body capable of destructive strength, yet what could've he done but just endure through? It took a few more moments and the ox just went to Tristan without even glancing at Nick. So much for effort, it didn't appear the mammal was very keen on doing this. Or was it because he was too good at this and the impression was received as such, for the cultivation of mistakes to be made, if something malicious was in mind?

The same process was done to his dear friend, but instead of letting them proceed, the guard asked for the briefcase be opened, with Nick groaning loudly and giving view to the contents of the rectangular carry.

The ox grunted in approval and a side step, and gestured towards the wall where a machine with many holes stood, with a size adjusted even for a giraffe. It was a dryer that was going to remove all this moisture from their bodies, well, good thing was that it wasn't going to do it to the one inside them as that would spell a rather horrific disaster, heh. But Nick being Nick, he stopped just before they were to pass the guard and tapped Tristan by the shoulder, while his muzzle was pointed directly at the burly ox.

"Would you mind holding these for the moment, sir?" Nick asked soothingly as he raised his briefcase and glanced at Tristan, as to signal him to do the same, with the umbrella that had gone through some hardship of adventures. The guard glanced at his station where tinted windows stood, he more like glared at something or someone, but then he looked down back at Nick and smiled so fakely that Nick feared that the big mammal might soon need a yellow card.

"Of course not, gentlemals," the ox replied and reached with his big hoof for the items that both foxes put into. Well, they easily fit into the hoof of the mammal and he didn't need to hold them like intended, just let them remain inside his big palm. Funny thing was sometimes the size difference, there were so many opportunities there... so many ways to abuse the system and profit of its huge back…

Both foxes moved towards the dryer and positioned themselves close to one another as they waited for the stream of cleansing to begin. Nick had experience with such equipment but this one looked more serious and way more powerful, while his expectations were raised when the stream of hot air began flowing through the holes and towards his body, to which he extended his paws in the air and slowly moved around himself as the air went around his frame and underneath his coat, while the humidity was sucked dry up towards the ceiling.

Oh, dryness, all of that moisture was just annihilated and he thought that he was flying above the clouds, to which he hugged himself with a slip of a smile, while the air blew around every piece of body. He dared to peep at Tristan, whose tail had become even bushier and the way his fur moved from the highly-pressured air, it got Nick's eyes to just suck in the view that was making his mind to dance in ecstasy, so much that his long tongue slipped out with saliva instantly recoiling away at a random direction from the stream of air.

He was seeing a delicious tod before him, who even carried his mating mark on the side of his neck where claws had scraped in the reflex of pleasure. There was no doubt about Nick's choice, his body was already reacting and thus he moved his eyes elsewhere as to stifle the urge that was peeking out of places that weren't appropriate at this very moment. One thing was for sure tho, vixens were way more ferocious during mating, that was where the fight for dominance would kick in as to lower the damage being done, while wanting it at the same time. Strange thing was predator behaviour, but he didn't mind it, it was damn right enjoyable even if the stiffness, where he was nearly punctured, acted as a nuisance.

The blower finished its job and Nick tugged his coat as to fix it in place but without touching its buttons, because he wanted to look as open as possible without any signs that he needed reassurance or defences. He stepped out the metal surface of the machine, with silent pawsteps following behind, and went to take that what was his from the ox who was needed to attend to other mammals that had entered the premise.

With claws tapping the smoothness below, the fox duo continued towards what looked like another checkpoint with the same sliding doors in tinted darkness. But they didn't open and Nick nearly hit his muzzle in the tinted glass. Sound buzzed from the side that had loud coughs, yet nobody could be seen. A whirring sound came about from that speaker and above it something like a plastic card spewed about. Nick didn't know how to react and stood like an idiot for some moments. His stupor was broken when Tristan pulled out the plastic piece of access and put it in front the obscured reader next to the doors, which got them to open and flood the lobby with the sounds from the hidden world.

Air ran away and exposed the insides of the tree, to which Nick walked in like a starry-eyed kit. The giant tree was hollow with many offices climbing up its length which, if Nick didn't know better, he'd have thought they were reaching the sky itself and beyond.

The doors gently closed behind them in tightness with Nick's tail almost going between them if it were not for Tristan, who grabbed it in the last of moment of salvation, with a _tck-tck_ following by and nothing more but an amused look of full understanding. There was a fountain in the middle, while a waterfall fell from above of one of the corners distant and continued down somewhere unseen, somewhere below them even. Vines and leaves populated crossings in the air, a world within a living being…

So many platforms and bridges of style that were in great harmony with the tree itself, there were even small trees grown inside the hollowness, while light poured through lamps hidden in the wood itself. At least there was no rain, at least the humidity was in sync with normality. Nick's shoulder was touched by Tristan, who pointed towards an interesting mechanism close to the entrance they had come from.

It was an obscured machine with a stylish look, as its metal was made invisible by coating of appropriate imagery of animals and plants, while this transparent tubing was going directly into the wood with a yellowish liquid. Who knew how deep it went and how it worked but it looked compressed as the hole didn't seem to have the ability of mistakes as to be letting anything out.

"Nutrients?" Tristan asked lowly but Nick couldn't give him a straight answer, it was a possibility but shouldn't that have been done at the roots and not the middle of the living giant? Or maybe because they had severed its center and major arteries, therefor it was needed for life to be sustained, maybe that's why half of it had ceased living. But instead of hypothesizing, Nick just gave a shrug of his shoulders and threw it off as unimportant, while his legs transported him towards the reception, where a tall giraffe lady was currently typing away noisily, with a monitor high in the air due to logical convenience.

Nick stopped just before the desk that seemed a bit too big as he couldn't see over it, but his eyes found that it was lower on the other side, where he moved to and stopped, now having a good shot at the mammals working around there. A big anteater with glasses, who was engrossed in actually eating live ants from a jar, and a rather attractive ocelot who was right in front of him in formal wears, while business was being seen on the interactive screen she was working from before her, which reacted to every touch of her clawless fingers. Who needed mechanical keyboards, pft… Well, Nick certainly liked them more, it was cheaper and felt actually… there. Yet nowadays they could rarely be found, you had to go around old houses and ask if one was laying around the old basement or webby attic.

" _You'd like that changed to tomorrow?_ " the ocelot said but it wasn't to anyone around her as she was wearing an earpiece that glowed red and Nick examined his black claws in patience, even if he could've just tried with the other mammals at work. He didn't want to seem desperate or out of time, despite time itself running by with a disliked gait of mockery. " _Mr. Kavolski won't be available at the specified, how about we appoint it 2 hours after your desirable time?"_

Tristan came by Nick and put the umbrella onto the tidy desk, while gesturing with his paw as to ask what was going on, to which Nick widened his eyes and pointed with his muzzle at the ocelot and that got Tristan to scoff and plop his arms onto the desk with an intensive stare at the young lady who didn't even give him a reaction. " _I understand the inconvenience but it's not possible otherwise, everything is scheduled already, sir."_

"I guess we're not that important, Tris. They don't want our money here," Nick poked smugly enough so that the ocelot would hear him, which he was sure she did as her ear twitched but her eyes remained on the interactive display below her rapidly moving fingers.

"No kidding, can't even get a welcome here."

" _No, you can't come at that time, I already told you the only possible hour for tomorrow,"_ the ocelot rebuked with hints of anger and at last her eyes caught both Nick and Tristan's, to which she received nothing but a malicious grin from Nick. But then her head moved down again and she acted as if they weren't there, which got Nick's eye to twitch and his mind to try and get under the cat's skin.

"Ma—" Nick began saying but was interjected by a head above them with a long neck that had bended at a strange angle.

"Ey, gentlemals. Welcome to the main headquarters of Straits of the Rainforest District. How may we help you?" the femammle giraffe asked but somehow Nick was more interested in the golden neck rings that climbed almost half up her long neck that had bended exactly at the end. Because of his daze, it wasn't him who began talking at first.

" _I understand, sir, bu—"_

"Hello, we have a meeting with the… Director? We're supposed to be there in…" Tristan trailed off as he peeked at his watch without any hints of discomfort, "in five minutes, I believe. Would you point us towards their office?" Tristan invoiced, while Nick just smirked in pride, not without giving off annoying glances at the ocelot, who still was taken fully by the uncooperative mammal on the line.

The giraffe remained motionless with squinted eyes for a bit, but then she extended to her full height and began typing on what Nick believed to be her preference, it was surely such by the age as she looked older, possibly in her late 50's? Even so, she was keeping herself fairly well, with stylishness of appearance. But Nick wanted to do something else, his nerves were itching in dare, thus he just couldn't hold himself. He looked for the busy cat's name tag, a name tag found which read _Amanda Marston_.

"Say, _Amanda_ ," he emphasized coyly on her name and even noticed partial mortification from Tristan, "I deem myself as a good multitasker as well,"

"Tristan Primale and Nicholas Wilde, founders of WildeTimes?" the giraffe asked from atop strongly, to which Tristan confirmed verbally and Nick just gave a lazy thumbs up without breaking contact with the mammal before him.

" _The only way, sir, is if you come today then. At the specified time._ "

"But, Amanda, I found out one thing," Nick quickly added when the last word got out of her mouth, a very visible twitch in her lip showing a bit of sharp bone that her fangs hereditary had given her.

"Usually it doesn't pass like this, but… she has put a note personally…" the giraffe tapped on the desk for some moments of uncertainty, "she doesn't like anyone being late. Take the elevator to the last floor," the giraffe pointed with her long arm to the other side behind the fountain. "Office is at the end of the corridor," she finished and smiled in sure instinctive memory.

"Thank you, ma'am," Tristan returned with a polite tone and grabbed the umbrella from the desk, but Nick wasn't peeling his stare away from the ocelot, who he knew was going to break at any moment now.

"It's almost impossible to do so when more than one mammal is talking to you, catty," Nick added with a lowering, bumpy tone that could've been compared with one of demeaning. The brown eyes of the feline finally shot in line with Nick's in the form of heinous incandescence that translated into her tail moving behind her in the manner that Nick was searching for, which meant that he had managed to sneak under her skin, thus chuckled with a wink forward of receivement unwanted.

" _I already told you, sir!_ " she almost shouted in the form of raised voice, as she broke her glare of death from Nick and shot it at her screen where she interacted irrationally and clenched her fist. " _I'm no— maybe the phone's too close to your ears, sir…_ " she angrily continued in a form that was like music to Nick's own triangles of hearing, but then he saw Tristan's disappointment as he was knocking his fingers on his watch and pointing at the window-obscured elevator behind the bubbling fountain of marble and blue.

"Ta-ta, catty," Nick finalized smugly with closing attempts of catching her snakish-eyes but the desk got his sight filled, and he carried his ass towards the new destination, while shooting a chuckling glance at the giraffe who was actually having a tug on her lip that resembled a weak smirk. The fountain had very well crafted embeds in the forms of different fishes that were all unique in their own way, he even caught an octopus somewhere amidst the elements of artistic expression. Hell, there were actual fish swimming about inside!

The elevator then came to his eyes with ornaments of thorny roses that were chiselled as to give the design depth and beauty. Expensive stuff. The elevator had already been called as he could see from the dividing glass above, the box of transport moving very quickly down, tho no wires could be seen, just the black railing behind, which didn't have anything in it, surprisingly.

Nick came by Tristan's side and touched the frame where the display console for the elevator was, the wood was so slick and gentle, had they done all this everywhere around the confines of this breathing ancient? Amazing… The elevator voiced arrival in a _dingish_ fashion and the thick door wooden opened inwards slowly, with the power of hydraulics, thus giving view to three rabbits and a ewe who instantly stared at Nick and his friend in a way that made Nick's claws to clash into one another between the toes of his feet.

Thus Nick didn't wait for them to leave and just began entering, almost colliding with one of the bucks who flinched away as if touching Nick would mean infection, while the remainder of the mammals left with glares and more like mortification, which his nose easily detected in the box, where not only that could be caught in the air as one of the rabbits was a doe with a bit too short of skirt…

 _Office fun…_

He wanted to grin but the dirty looks managed to bring his mood down a bit, yet when Tristan entered and used the interactive screen, where he chose the last floor on the digital pixels. But then the door just closed, as if locking and no motions followed suit. Nick took that moment to sigh and smooth the fur on his muzzle. "You didn't have to be a jerk about it, N," Tristan said and looked over his shoulder with small amounts of sorrow, while the lens above the digital console opened like an eye alive, surely to capture who had asked for access to that level, an interesting way of security and tracking indeed.

" _Clearance required for further access the administrative floor,_ " came an automated response that got Tristan to put the card next to glassy sensor after a bit of visible pondering.

"Neither did they," Nick returned and crossed his arms before him, while turning to face the door and giving his back to the eye, to which Tristan turned around and leaned against the plastic frame of the silverfish elevator, which still wasn't moving.

And then air escaped from the sides and a plastic additional barrier came to be in front the wooden one that supposedly was just a static one that lacked attachment to the elevator itself, definitely for weight reasons, tho this piece of transport could surely carry elephants at less.

"You're such an ass sometimes… Amanda sure will remember you," Tristan giggled out at last and put a paw in front his muzzle as snorts came about as well.

"I hope she does, she tried her best not to!" Nick said and finally dropped his guard as he sidestepped closer to his friend and looked at the console beside, "when is this goi—" but before he could continue further, movement spurred instantly and they began the climb, which was happening very fast for his senses to have the capability of realizing it on such short notice, while the plastic walls of division gave sight to the view below that was starting to thin out and appear antish. Offices with windows and openness could be seen on the other side, while the box of foxes sped up towards the sky.

"My loins are meltingggg," Nicks vibrated aloud as the feeling of butterflies in his gut was just getting him ecstatic and ticklish all around, while they passed platform after platform and mammals after mammals, until the view turned into a constant wall of dark brown, yet the numbers were counting up at the digital red above, where the plastic doors would slide in and out. "You feeeeel it, duuuude?"

"Yea… it kinda mmmakes me want to tttake a leak, N…" Tristan confessed with a voice of vibration in par, while his paws were between his legs and his knees were slightly lowered. Nick's ears perked up and a genuine laugh rang around the elevator for all sizes. The movement lowered and the elevator actually rotated, with the transparent barrier giving view of doors, which had tints of red wood. They opened easily and gave view to a wide corridor that went only forward, with walls made of glass, while the contents inside those rooms were hidden by white blinds, except one room that had a large table in the middle with seats all around. But it was empty. Looked like a conference room.

"Just hold it, it'll pass… or get yourself excited," Nick reassured Tristan as he winked at the last words to which the young tod blushed away, while trying to keep his gait perfect, as they closed in on the end of the hallway. The light was coming from the ends of branches that came from the walls, they looked very real, even if Nick didn't trust himself to believe such nonsense.

The floor had artistic forms of plants and even mammals in primal postures, while furniture was lacked totally around the place, mammals also. It was, in a way, getting his heartbeat to increase even more from uncertainty with combination of the stress of what was to happen and how the director might accept them.

"One minute…" Tristan muttered as they increased their pace towards the end, where the uneven corner could be seen. Just as they rounded it, Nick noticed a rhino standing close to the wall as if it was serving a role as a guard, yet the mammal had no uniform, just simple clothes and a surly expression, yet the grey eyes, they quickly caught the two foxes and followed their every step. It made Nick to wave from concern as they passed by the intimidating mammal whose horn had these rings that riddled from top to bottom through the holes in the horn itself, looking like stairs towards the sharp tip above of curve.

A view of glass, where light was pouring through came with another corner. Nick's curiosity wanted to peek out and see below, but time was against both him and Tristan, who was now lightly running in front with his bushy tail swaying left and right. Nick hoped that it wasn't from fear of the massive rhino behind them, who at least wasn't tailing them, as no heavy steps could be heard or felt. Mainly felt.

There was a relatively smaller door that marked the end of the corridor, well smaller in comparison to the rest of the establishment where everything was huge just to accommodate all. This was made to accommodate a mammal who wasn't neither too tall, nor too wide, nor too small. That gave Nick more courage as they zeroed in on the gorgeous door that had these protruding roots that were making it uneven and perfectionless, yet incredible due to the carried idea that this was created by paw, time and ampleness of dedication. Machines craved and sought perfection, mammal minds sought beauty and creativity that had given life itself to those old lifeless objects of metal and circuits of memory. Those minds could see more than the absolute tool of frost.

The doorframe looked solid and there were no cracks around the barrier of entrance, nothing could be heard from the inside, thus giving a deafening silence that was disturbed by the humming of lights around the modern corridors. Eh, of and with an addition of a loud sneeze that wobbled the air from afar, surely the rhino who had given them the stink-eye. Nick hoped that the intimidating mammal had breathed in a giant moth, huh, that'd be perfect if it had happened.

On the side of the doorframe there was a tag that read _Zoe Carvidos, Director of Straits,_ to which Nick took note, as names were very important in the beginning of relationships, even if they were to be only business related. Seeing that it was going to be a femammle, some of the pressure around his gut was released, but he didn't let it fully retract as his guard was to be always up no matter whom was to be faced, he knew appearance could deceive, he knew prejudice could smither blind… Prejudice was a festering disease that was the worst of them all, the core to all restrictions and failures, the catalyst of chaos.

Nick noticed Tristan looking at him, while pointing at something that was part of the wall. It looked like a small console that loomed out of reach of both tods. It got the red youngling to step closer to Tristan and scrutinize the surface of the smooth bark for anything that would indicate functionality. His paw touched the soothing surface and gave way to a glide that got some of his claws to scrape soundly in incident. The device above beeped, which raised Nick's hackles in alarm as he feared that he wasn't supposed to do this, while his paw shot to his chest in defence and attempt to hide the deed done.

The surface that was touched suddenly changed color and form, but it wasn't actually true, it was an illusion, a projection that came from that same small device above. A long frame adjusted to the height of the two foxes, a frame with rounded edges and a very lucrative design that spoke volumes of the expertise of those who had engineered it.

 _The Purpose of Your Visit?_

 _Business_

 _Work-Related_

 _Complaints_

 _Consultation_

 _Arbitrary_

Nick's paw wondered what to choose, as _Business_ did sound right and yet they weren't officially logged, from what he had extracted down at the reception. Tho who would've cared, unless it mattered so? Suddenly Tristan pushed his paw onto the projected hologram, which got Nick's own to shoot and grab his friend's grey wrist. But the action had been done and the colors before them changed, the menu remained still but now the simplicity of the clever design turned into a video, which's sights were somewhat familiar. It was a camera slowly moving through what appeared to be the Rainforest District, the bay could be seen with all the bridges, trees and vines, which the flying camera was slowly and perfectly capturing.

"I say _Business_ , generalizes all of our motives," Nick began while he still held Tristan's wrist, tho he kept holding the long-muzzled tod, who finally lowered his paw such as he did with his ears.

"But isn't our appointment considered a consultation of offers? What if they don't let us in if we're wrong?" Tristan asked and somehow shifted his paw in a way that now Nick wasn't holding the wrist but the gentle pads of his friend, it got him to feel an inappropriate light blush but that didn't stop him from squeezing warmly.

"When in doubt..." Nick opined absent-mindedly and moved his finger into the button of illusion _Arbitrary,_ getting a quick reaction from Tristan who snatched Nick's paw away from the handy console, but it was too late as the option was marked and blackness overtook the patch of wall.

"Why did you just do th—?! It cou—" but Tristan's words faltered as the blackness took colors and shapes of a certain memorable place, with a certain memorable mammal. Nick couldn't hold himself from slowly grinning into exult, and Tristan took a step slightly away in remorseful realization, yet the scorn in his eye couldn't visibly leave at what he was surely thinking over within his crafty but honest head.

It was the ocelot, Amanda, and she appeared to have had her mood improved from the initial entrance of her existence upon the interactive _screen_. It didn't last long tho, as her eyes registered the two foxes on the other side. Nick knew that she was more like looking at him, because when his grin became even worse, her own frown deepened in par. He couldn't hold himself and mocked, "'Manda! You can't get enough of us. I know it's infectious but you've got to be a tad more professional, gal."

The unacceptable squint of Tristan got Nick to feel basicly embarrassed from his behaviour, but his emeralds took in the body language of the cat, and he noticed her tail behind moving, her temper was surely thinned, yet she remained silent and visibly was doing something in equivalence of the request that was done.

" _Your credentials and clearance are restricted from entering. You're lacking any official appointment or documentation_ ," the ocelot told them impassively without even peeling an eye at them, while Nick's ears fell as the giraffe had told them there was no issue with that and that they could proceed. They could always just try to enter but he was sure that the door only opened with this so called _clearance_ that the card's magnetic information only had the capacity for.

He was about to start when his words were taken straight out his mouth like a known and easy to read book. "Your colleague with the neck rings prompted up the question, while you were busy, miss. She told us there wouldn't be a conundrum in visiting the Director, despite the lack of officiality present. There are no needs for ramifications, yes?" Tristan finished as he straightened his back even more, while a prideful head stood tall, it was actually a modest arousal of sight that made Nick to shift on his toes, yet he could see Tristan's fingers drum around as he held his paws behind himself. At least this was progress, very compelling progress.

The ocelot finally gave them her eyes that held surprise and agitation in the same spot, until she twitched her muzzle and turned around with her chair towards someone else, following with the loud words, " _Britney! Get down here!_ " Nick nearly choked on a snort, as he could easily guess who Amanda was trying to get the attention of, it was never easy with tall mammals, never. " _Britney!_ " The sound from above even cracked a bit from the loudness and high-pitched voice that got Nick's heart to skip a beat.

Nothing new came to the visualization but the ocelot did move a few centimetres further. " _Why are you yelling?_ " asked the familiar and disinterested voice of the giraffe. Nick indeed wanted to just endorse the peepshow, yet time was running out, and he tried to get the attention of the ocelot but to no avail, she was totally severed from the reality that was the two foxes' problem and now appeared very motivated to deal with another. He wasn't going to skirt around the corner, he felt provoked.

" _Becau— ughh, the issue is that you let those two foxes without any prior-"_

"We can hear you…" Tristan grumbled and took a step forward to the screen but the only reaction the ocelot had was a twitch of ear that could've been initiated from a fly, tho the place lacked any insects whatsoever.

 _"—registration, you know you have to register them!_ " Amanda continued glaring up, and touched on the pawsfree device on her ear, but nothing came about but the humming of the surroundings and the distant chatter of the corridors that were starting to feel rather uninviting for Nick, especially with the ticking of time and the flow of lateness.

" _They were going to be late, there was no time to give them that. The Director told me about such occurring and how to handle it, inform her."_

" _It's a problem, you have to abide by the established protocols like everyone else. I can't let two random strangers in without giving full record. Why are you making it always hard on me, Brit?!_ "

" _It's on your head, darling._ " Amanda gawked on the visual device and then her face lost all expression, a reticent huskiness of bleak dust. Everything about her was normal and yet everything with her was so wrong…

" _Sirs, you're going to have to come back and provide the necessary paperwork,_ " she heartlessly articulated and just continued on her work as if their answer wasn't wanted due to her request being the only way, it made Nick feel his skin burn and claws to hurt his wrists.

"We can provide it through he—" Tristan tried to lessen the tension but Nick felt disgruntled and his sly insults no longer came to tongue.

"How about we just stay here and wait for the Director to come out herself? Then we'll tell her how _you_ had disabled-purposefully our ability to get to our meeting with her and that you had done that because we were foxes. I know it's all being recorded, catty. I really enjoyed those _formal_ words," Nick gave a reminder to when she had accidently articulated to her colleague, something that usually would be seen as normal, but under the current circumstances, it could've very easily went for speciesm. "Britney does appear to have no issues in cooperating on behalf our misconduct."

The unreadable expression gave way to despondency and panic, she didn't respond to the words, only visible ruminated upon them heavily, with her paws betraying her broken mask of composure. She quickly tapped on her console and touched the pawsfree device on her ear as if changing frequencies or channels.

"It's about t— _Yes. Director… I know bu— you have two fox visitors in front of your office who haven't regi— Director, we have prot— I just need them to co—_ " Silence devoured the world as not even crackles from the signals could be detected from the speakers, wherever they were located… Huh, as he thought 'bout it, there really was never any such distortion to begin with, despite his futile attempts of catching those sounds of imperfection and usual order of factuality that was sound waves. This didn't matter, the silence and visual bemusement meant that the ocelot had found her place, a place where she had to do what she was bid, at least Nick hoped the objective reality was such, he didn't want to delusion himself currently in the subjective one of imagination and possibilities breadthless.

"You're such a doll, Amanda. To the bitter end." The visual of the cat instantly disappeared and then came that same prompt where the card was asked for once again. Tristan reached for the outlined red area of the hologram with the plastic piece of multi-functionality, and the whole frame turned green with the new text _Step In Front Of The Door_. Instantly, out of the adjacent wall on their side, came two sensors in a spring-like fashion, sensors that pointed at the two foxes like rifles ready to end lives of decades. Nick felt uneasy at this strange technology but moved his rump towards the thick door.

Tristan came by him and they just stood idle for several seconds, until Nick began feeling this increasing hotness around his back that got him to angle his head and notice a tint of many blue lines spreading from the sensor on the wall he was looking at. At that moment he felt the same heat in front of him and it was more intense around his nose and squinted eyes. At the top frame of the door there was another of the same that was apparently scanning both foxes. It never hurt one to be too careful apparently, unless we we're talking about those that were being _examined_.

Air hissed from the door as if it was releasing enormous pressure unchecked. Light appeared on the side of the frame and it climbed towards the chest area of Nick, where it stopped. Vein-like, it moved through the inside of the door in visibility and something began whirring to life, tho there wasn't much grinding or clanking at all, it sounded smooth and in perfect order. The moment it stopped moving was the moment when a handle cogged out of that light-up surface and took that specific shape of appropriateness for the two foxes.

Both Nick and Tristan looked at each other for reassurance that this was finally happening and Nick gestured with his paw for Tristan to proceed, to which the long-muzzled tod shook his head in mild defiance, yet Nick was stern in his decisiveness, and Tristan gulped down his remaining irresolution from the lack of choice. His steps moved him closer, his paw grabbed the slick and shiny metal, and with an audible exhale, Tristan pressed onto the handle. There was no visible strain in Tristan's actions that Nick's eyes could register into scrutiny, while the massive door opened inwards so fluidly, as if it were alive and helping out the suited fox.

Something caught Nick's eyes in the corner of the wooden walls, it glinted in reflection as if it had moved its slick surface perfect, it wasn't a protrusion but it looked and appeared to have the small shape of an… eye… He wanted to test his assumption and took two steps back, and the reflection disappeared, while that eye moved, which pulled out a snort out of the tod as he had just realized they were being watched, guess the whole place was wired and secured, it reeked of uptightness and control, despite the lack of forth in the scheduling and meetings, apparently.

Nick's eyes moved towards the chamber office, and he saw the minimal brown floor uneven, as if dug into the tree itself, yet when Tristan stepped onto it, it was like he was in the air and the surprise of fox reached Nick's eyes where he questioned if reality was being twisted foul. The young dark-red tod hesitantly put his other leg there and tapped with his fingers upon the surface. But the door kept on opening and thus revealed the remaining of the office which consisted of a very large window in the end, while cupboards and many monitors riddled the _natural_ walls around.

With that came a heavy voice from the end of the room which was given a face as they entered without a warm invitation present. The mammals there were a femammle deer, who was sitting behind her wide, black desk, with clasped hooves in front, and a mammle forest hog who was next to that said desk, while leaning towards the femammle. " _I want it all sent by the end of this damn week. Get it into your head once and for all, or e—…_ "

The hog with the light-blue suit, and black sweater underneath, instantly shot his glare towards Nick and Tristan, which got them both to freeze at the entrance of the room and to just stay like that for a while until the hog spat with detest, "You foxes lost or what? Get ou—"

"That's my business, Sir. Don't meddle," the doe fatally interjected with stern confidence at the hog who was caught out of words as he glanced around the foxes and, with the new information for Nick, subordinate.

"Relations with foxes, no wonder why you're stalling to report. Get your erroneous decadence in regulation or someone more competent will assimilate your _undeserved_ position," the hog aggressively put forth and dropped documents onto the wooden desk that was part of the floor itself, yet it was refined around the edges in great care and craftsmanship, or was that just an illusion due to the desk being of color that lacked similarity with the tree itself? The doe only kept her stern gaze, without even peeling a word, to which her superior huffed darkly and began exiting the luxurious office.

The two foxes moved out of the way, as the hog was just drilling spite at them, with the visible want for an excuse to start a problem, which Nick didn't even want to instigate with someone above the individual with whom they were supposed to make a deal. Only a madmammal would put their head in the hornets' nest. The heavy scent of perfume, mingled with earthy mud, got to Nick's nose as the larger and heavier mammal passed by them with an inhospitable grunt which was the last thing _articulated_ before the heavy door closed with the air of pressure sealing them in from the world outside.

That exact moment, the doe's arms went underneath the desk and began doing something with lackless vision, while the two foxes just stood there without saying or moving anything. Nick couldn't believe the bad timing they had come to because the mammal behind that seat of power, even with the gentle lines of her face, she was just furious underneath the feminine aspects of her body that hid the emotion too well to Nick's comfort prickled.

Her neck was long with a golden fur color that was taken over by what looked like a fur tattoo, which moved down towards her chest, where a white shade could be seen between the opened top button of her white, sleeveless shirt. The tattoo resembled something like a wolf's head, whose muzzle was opened with rows of exposed sharp teeth in continuation towards the chest.

She had a strange earing on her medium ear in the form of a blazing circle which's ends were sharp, and in match with the golden color of her fur. But then came a view of a liquor bottle that was half full, with glasses accompanying it that clanked on the desk, while she expertly opened the bottle and poured into her own glass, which was a bit more than what Nick believed to be of appropriate size and quantity. But then she did something even crazier as the contents were took in a single shot, with wrinkles on her short muzzle, and she massaged the space between her annoyed eyes.

That gave another view of her fingers, where her hooves' ends were pointy and looked like actual… wine-red claws… But these claws weren't natural, they were specifically made to fit her fingers that were now longer, sharper and, if he was to be honest to himself, sexy as hell. But the doe wasn't saying anything, she wasn't inviting them to sit, she wasn't shooting them glances that would do the trick of wordless tract, she was totally ignoring them.

Yet… there were two more glasses on her expensive desk. Maybe that was the hint that Nick needed to see? He touched Tristan's shoulder and gestured with his head to move. Nick just realized that the floor was made from glass as the surface wasn't bumpy but slick and very even. But there was no time to contemplate on stupidity, and they closed the distance, confidence-visible, and took a seat from next to the wall, where they stood out of the way of movement. The big glass window behind the doe was giving view to the vastness of the Rainforest District and even distant tints of the Meadowlands… what a view… what a position… what luck!

He took lead as he knew that Tristan wasn't going to be able to figure anything out in this dire and very fragile situation. "Almost late, was very rainy today, e-heh," Nick began with his smug voice, while moving towards the side of the desk as staying frontal with anybody wasn't a good idea, unless you were to try and intimidate or judge them, yet the doe was just staring into nothing and playing with the glass in her clawed hoof. "We didn't want to intrude but I believe that you're a mammal who doesn't like lazy tails…" He put his chair close to the end of the side of the desk and motioned to Tristan to do so close to him. Thus they sat. "Especially nosey, bosses."

The doe stopped twisting the emptiness in her hoof and slowly angled her head towards Nick, who instantly caught her ocean blue eyes, they spoke of great aggravation and silent rage, which got him to defensively smirk and gulp internally to the femammle before him, who was getting him to feel uncomfortable just by looking at him. She pried her red leathery chair towards the foxes and Nick saw her tight, grey skirt that was just slightly above her elegant knees, yet her feet, she was wearing what looked like… heels?

 _That's odd…_

The doe poured more alcohol into her greedy hoofs, but this time it was twice as less, which meant that her stress was going away. That meant that his words were working, he needed to stray her away from the gloom and into an idea of potentialities. "Guess it's unnecessary for long introductions as you surely know who we are, Zoe," he calculatingly dared and saw the despair in Tristan's expression, from the corner of his unwavering eyes, while the doe had stopped midway with her glass, her bewilderment speaking volumes of Nick's confidence at breaking through the formal barrier without any permission given.

After all, the first step to getting someone to trust you is by getting close to that individual, thus using their first name or even giving them another one, which in this situation could either benefit their cause or entirely disintegrate it. But Zoe's stuckness in time faded as she just continued with her drink as if nothing had happened, thus Nick stopped playing with his claws from apprehension of what was to happen from his boldness.

"I'm Nick, and this is Tristan. You can call me however you'd like. Him? Would you mind if so?" Nick asked Tristan, who for a moment was utterly dumbfounded.

"Uh— no-no! No issues there," Tristan burst out accidently, to which Nick internally tried to shoot himself in the head.

 _Could you be more obvious, Tris…_

But Zoe wasn't reacting badly, her eyes were actually roaming his friend and she raised her chin up with her claws touching the white fur underneath, as if she was thinking about something Nick couldn't know. The inferno in her azures had reduced tho, and her face had significantly softened. He gave the credit to his smoothness but it all could've been the alcohol, which's strong smell he could easily catch in the air of the cozy office. Her claws trailed towards her chest and stopped on top the wolf's toothed muzzle.

"We come as representatives of our company to negotiate a deal! I saw that the time isn't that ideal, but hold belief that we can skirt around the issue and reach a mutual understanding that'd lead to great opportunities," Nick festively explained with great emotion and articulation from his body, but the only thing the doe before him did was breathe and stare at him. No words, no body expression, nothing. Was she testing them if they'd run out of things to say? Did she know who she was dealing with?

"It may not appear so at first but we must look into the future and hold the greater picture in light, rather than the quick and easy ways that'd be just temporary and lacking strength to survive time itself," Nick continued and even stood up from his spot, which got Zoe to slowly move with the position of his body that started slowly pacing into the space behind the desk and towards the big window. "We may be talking about putting five tiles today, but tomorrow it'll be ten, then twenty. After a month: a thousand!" Nick neared closer to the thick spotless glass from where he just stood in wonder to the magnificence before him.

"All it takes is a seed to be planted, and if nurtured, it'll grow into a fine and fruitful tree of greater opportunities!" His feet carried him around the other side where he looked around books of law and economy and psychology, while pictures were lacking as if they were avoided like the black plague. "I know what you're doing, Zoe. But I guess you just listening is enough, wouldn't you agree?" he asked as he glanced over his shoulder, to which he could clearly see annoyance around Zoe's mouth, yet she remained silent as a stone and poured again in her now-filling glass. The gesture was taken as a positive greenlight.

"Of course you would, long live consistency, eh?" He moved in front the desk and trailed one of his claws over the sturdy wood, which got it to make a scraping sound that got Zoe's ears to twitch at attention and her eyes to follow his taunting actions, to which she wasn't responding, yet this didn't visibly infuriate her, it actually held interest around her now-curious eyes as she in turn scraped her desk with her makeshift reds as well. Was she enjoying predatory features? Was that why she was even listening to him? When was a response with interest going to come…

"So how about we talk about it? Reach a common ground where everyone will be happy. Well, not that rhino outside, I don't think he'd even understand the word…" Nick tried to joke around as he put both his paws on the back of Tristan, who initially flinched but relaxed under the tapping of Nick's claws against his coat. Nick could swear he saw a tug on the doe's lips that resembled a smile but then it all fell, as she frowned deeply and put both her feet onto the desk in one fluid motion which almost toppled the bottle of liquor.

Her hoof reached for something on the desk and the room instantly turned black, the only sources of light being the window and monitors around the walls, while the floor, walls and ceiling were empty pits of nothing. The furniture was as if levitating with lack of hesitance in the air, it got Nick's tail to electrify and his stomach to develop the sensation of falling, yet he tried to smash the nervousness by just sitting, tho he was very excited to understand how this had even occurred within this office of wonders and advancement.

"Am I supposed to trust the word of foxes? You can be anybody, I don't think you even know how to dress properly… doing business to and fro, hah" the voice of the doe became known, it carried gentleness but the malicious words infected it with a strain that entered Nick's body and got his claws to dig into Tristan by accident, which got his friend to yelp only audibly to Nick's meaty ears.

So this was it, heh? She had heard what she wanted and enjoyed the distraction he had given her, and now she was going to lay her anger and hate at them instead of her boss who deserved every last bit. Maybe he could steer the conversation there somehow, maybe he could beat her in the game of words, now that she had entered it with a rather nasty attitude.

"Am I supposed to trust a tipsy director?" he shot back, to which she instantly snorted into her drink and actually giggled in a cute manner, but didn't respond verbally, just gazed into Nick again, but this time with… amusement? He stood up instantly and away from Tristan and leaned closer to her, with one leg over the other, while his weight rested on the paws on the desk, despite the ill feeling of that the depressing darkness was causing. "I think we know how to dress pretty well," he tugged the unbuttoned space of his shirt and trailed his claws down slowly to which her eyes followed intently. "Just a matter of _perspective_."

Zoe stood between perplexity and awe, and he knew that he had struck a nerve, as she played with her fingers until words accompanied her actions, "Truly, such a delicate matter… Seen by few, understood by less…" she trailed off as her makeshift claws grinded into one another and Nick really wanted to ask why she had them on her but forced himself not to.

"Which leads us to that special conundrum that we've come to work upon, by those, who understand," Tristan suddenly piped out of nowhere, a decision that reft Nick's heart at first but the words that had come in the tone that had followed, they were actually rather flamboyant. Nick noticed the squint of her eyes at Tristan, and after she licked her surely drying lips, her legs were removed from her desk, which showed the end of her superciliousness to mock and torture them. So to that, Nick took his rightful seat and clasped his claws in patience for Zoe's words to come.

But words didn't come, she grabbed the other two empty glasses and filled them with abnormal amounts of the sharp poison, while giving herself even loftily more. Nick's mind saw possibilities with bad tastes and regressive actions. Without standing up, she pushed the crystal shapes towards the two foxes as best she could, slightly failing, which showed that the effects of intoxication were getting to her. That meant well tho, she was going to ease up and Nick could take control over the situation, they just had to continue talking.

"Sorry, but we'll pass," Nick asserted calmly and tugged her a fake smile that she visibly took with bitterness.

"Drink… then _maybe_ we talk," she happily concluded and raised her drink ready for them to clank together and gulp down the surplus contents, but Nick didn't want to do so and his warmth fell into the depths of his most distant, hateful memory downtrodden.

"It's not necc—"

"I decide that," she interjected with fatally and unwavering relentlessness that chilled the bones of his body. He didn't know what to say, she wasn't allowing him to talk his way out of this, she evidently knew what she wanted and that was why she was demanding for them to continue, this doe wasn't stupid, she was currently in total control and was greatly abusing her position of getting what she desired. If he wasn't on the receiving end, he would've laughed so hard that his throat would've dried out like an incandescent desert.

He looked at Tristan with guilt and pursed his lips, to which the young tod gulped surreptitiously and nodded in regret. Nick reached for the glass of bad choices and raised it up, with Tristan doing the same after some moments unconfident, while Zoe smirked in satisfaction all the way and moved her hoof towards them that resulted in a loud clank with some of the contents spilling on their paws and hoofs and desk. Warmth spread on his skin, then they withdrew the contents of blight and contrition.

Nick took it closer to his nose and sniffed deeply. An immediate reaction with an immediate effect on his nasal cavity that couldn't resist to try and stop the foulness with mucus appearing. He believed to be already in the realm of intoxication due to the fumes that lived within this... scent? More like miasma. But time, time's winds were sailing fast.

"Bottoms up, _foxies_ ," Zoe coyly simpered through a short laugh and killed her glass easily, but this time with a grunt that was to be at last expected. Nick gulped hard and tried to think about something else as he put the cold glass to his mouth, but as none were managing to psychologically infuse the stress with joy, he just poured all the contents inside his mouth without thought.

The burning hotness coated his tongue in near escape from his extended muzzle but him forcing it shut got it to begin streaking to the base of his throat, where he held it. His gagging reflexes come and went, while he tried to get himself in properness, this was some damn strong stuff, but he needed to get it down so they could have more time with her, more time meant a possible chance to chip through the wall she was effortlessly holding between them. The more it stood inside, the less he would be able to savour food.

With a strained gulp, all of the liquor went down his throat in a ravaging stream that inflamed the walls of his insides, until it reached his belly where it danced in warmth. He coughed hard and feverishly, while Tristan did so the same but with less strain. Nick knew Tristan wasn't that green to alcohol, yet coughs came as an aftereffect to the intenseness of what was offered and consummated nearly willingly.

Nick dared to tell himself that he had seen her bite one her of long claws, but shook his head and saw nothing but an amused tipsy leer from the at-attention deer, who was swishing her glass aimlessly even when it was fully empty. "Happy?" Nick jarred hoarsely and tried to gulp down the remnants of nasty taste of alcohol of appal.

"For now," she returned through a grin that exposed her pearly teeth and soft side of her prey lips, "I'm listening, Nicky," she put her hoofs on the desk and her head rested above them, which gave full view of her face soft. Such was an incredible feat for them to reach, as not only had she come to terms in closeness, she was starting to feel at ease tremendously. That made his pride to swell harder than ever.

"Okay, great! Let's put it as basic as ever then. Don't want to bore you into sleep… Your company, being a global distributor of all kinds of electronics, has infiltrated many sectors and areas of Mammalia. I know that Straits mainly profits from public procurements, as they're the most viable and tasty of the bunch. But what about expanding at places where it was previously deemed irresponsible and dangerous?" Nick had lost her there as she tilted her head in confusion and twitched her black nose.

"What if I told you that there are opportunities for markets at places where poverty and crime loops all year round," Nick said and received a mistrustful scoff, "what if I told you that we have the connections and abilities to make that happen and that we only need the stock for distribution?"

"So you want to buy our stock and sell it? What, you want a discount?" she laughed harshly as her body withdrew into the comfort and protection of her chair, while Nick stared at her with forced surprise as to give her an impression that he hadn't expected such reaction, even if he had precisely done so.

"We don't want to buy anything from you," Nick declared with hints of indignation that reeked through his mouth and towards the doe, who scrunched her mouth and pointed a claw at him, but kept silent as she stared intensely into his soul for a few moments, yet didn't respond in any way as if she waited for him to clarify in a way that was making his tail to prickle. "We want a portion of the final profit from sold goods as a fee for our services," her puzzlement drained away with an initial coming of a frown, which tho instantly turned up into a smile that was accompanied by a lazy giggle.

"You think you're the only ones contemporarily offering that, _hih_! At least it was concise," the discordancy in her voice was starting to take shape slightly and her behaviour had aspects of goofiness, at least she wasn't being ice cold, as he knew that she'd probably have just remained silent or would've cut in with sharp remarks if it wasn't for the alcohol in her system. His eyes moved for a moment of reassurance to Tristan who had defensively crossed his paws in scowl.

"I trust myself to say so, yes. Especially in that sector," Nick defiantly tried to put himself in a strong place with strong words that visibly had an effect on the femammle deer, who drew out a long _hmmmm_ as she leaned on the side of the arm on her luxurious chair, with judgemental open fingers that touched the side of her cheek. Nick felt this unease within himself and once again glanced at Tristan for emotional support, which was received, when he noticed the calmness of his friend, who was looking at Nick with this warmth and… amazement…

"Oh? Clarify," she asked through an actual order to which he smiled victoriously and reached for his briefcase that had been idly resting under his chair like an obscured entity within the blackness of the abyss, which's purpose was to act as a surprise. Nick glanced at Tristan who was practically beaming and didn't seem all too phased, yet Nick knew that Tristan had to intervene in the conversation, tho just his presence was helping a lot, it was giving Nick more energy to keep his tough and cocky exterior in shape.

He wanted to give his friend a wink but knew that she'd notice that and interpret it like… trickery? Nah, he didn't want to risk strange questions, thus put the black rectangle on his legs and clicked open the silvery latches that got the box of importance to open and give view to documents and two ties, which only Nick had to see, it'd be rather embarrassing if she had view to those contents actually.

He removed the plastic sheet that was over the folder, which was one and lonely, and got it out carefully from the space of the black box and put it onto the desk carefully, after which he clicked the briefcase shut and set it aside. The folder was a fancy one with a crimson color and a dark, blue back, while inside lay the paperwork and structured ideas for what they were working on.

"Are you travellersh in time, like that tushked scumb—?" she shut her mouth with a quick pinch between her closed eyes and then rested her head in her hoof, the alcohol surely hitting her head within and throughout, her words were slurry now, her demeanor less formal. Still, he understood what she had meant as the current world was more into… the virtual and digital, thus he threw the folder on the desk and reached into the inside of his pocket. From there he pulled out a small pyramid-like device with smooth brown surface. It didn't have anything on it, no entrances or exits, it was just a small pyramid with dulled ends.

When she noticed the object in his paw, her disappointment instantly took reversal, "My-my, peculiarsh, hih…" But she didn't move a hair and just waited, and Nick sighed in mild miff, yet didn't try to oppose her, thus stood and put the object of luster close to her virtual console that lay stretched over and on top the desk. "Thought it wash going t' be a floppy, so dishappointed I am!" she jested and put a hoof in front her chuckling mouth, while Nick actually felt his defences fall by slight, she was being rather humorously-friendly.

Her hoof quickly grabbed her fancy glass and she devastated the remaining liquid in one gulp, clanking the crystalized object on the desk with the motion and clawed the small object close to herself. A big projection flared hanging in the middle of the desk that had the three-dimensional visual of a database query, yet one of stylishness and preciseness that Nick soon could not see as she quickly removed all that and furrowed into the functions of the workstation.

It was like an anachronistic exhibition from the future, yet Nick knew that such was very widespread in wealthy organizations and personal users who had the funds to acquire such equipment. The entertainment sector did have it but it still was too expensive to buy and setup. It was way cheaper to just have the digitalized monitors where you'd just use your paws or interactive pen, not a full projection hanging in the air…

Something like a funnel extended from the middle with the narrow side touching the doe's eyes, where Nick saw something peculiar, the reflection inside her eye, it looked like an unnatural pattern which was given contrast to this frequency of light, apparently. An unnatural pattern spreading from top to bottom in the hue of the pupil itself. It was, marvellous to see and know. If Nick didn't know better and would've been an educated mutt, he'd have thought she was savage.

The same went for her other eye in the same appearance, with all this process taking time in the span of seconds, after which her eyes took the shape and color of normality, as if nothing strange was in there at all, a misconception which Nick, and surely Tristan, were fully aware of by now. A compartment opened on a small quadrant on the side closest to her and she put the device within. The compartment closed and the screen was instantly filled in order of what Nick and Tristan had readied for her. The scenery of the office changed into a lighter one, now having textures that actually gave a vibe that the place was real, while the desk's projection increased so much in size that Nick could easily read his own documentation from the distance of his sitting.

 _WildeTimes LTD_

 ** _Perpetrator Docks_** ** _№3_** ** _Founders:_**

 ** _Tooth Road_** _Nicholas Piberious Wilde_

 ** _Happytown_** **_SZ05_** _Tristan Carvious Primale_

 ** _Sahara Square_** _**Co-Founders:**_

 ** _Zootopia_** _Hector Urband Surple_

 ** _Mammalia_** _Todtrot Jayb ZcCreary_

 ** _Contact Information:_**

 _#428-781-178_

 _#428-815-561_

 _#428-293-293_

 _WildeTimes_

* * *

 ** _A Contemporary and Preamble Overview of the Important Documents for the Company WildeTimes:_**

\- _Contract set for company Straits in the offer for distribution, ref d. #1._

\- _Its founding and current legal standing. The official documentation dates the creation of the company on the 01.07.2009_ _within the Agency of Registries, ref d. #8. Registration within the Regional Agency of Earnings on the 23.08.2009, ref d. #9. Allowance for distribution of electronical equipment in the borough of Happytown and Sahara Square with authorized vehicles and personnel, ref d. #10. Legal framework of perpetual objectiveness under the Act of Commerce, where it is ruled out that East Happytown is under the regional control of Sahara Square and not Savanna Central, thus taxation is lower upon importing and exporting, ref d. #5._

\- _There are no current criminal procedures upon any of the owners, co-owners of the company, with such unlikely to change, ref d. #4. The company is economically stable and able to undergo distribution with set bounds, ref d. #2._

 _12.10.2009_

…

 _WildeTimes LTD_

 ** _Dock's Warehouse_** ** _№3_** ** _Founders:_**

 ** _Tooth Road_** _Nicholas Piberious Wilde_

 ** _Happytown_** **_SZ05_** _Tristan Carvious Primale_

 ** _Sahara Square_** _**Co-Founders:**_

 ** _Zootopia_** _Hector Urband Surple_

 ** _Mammalia_** _Todtrot Jayb ZcCreary_

 ** _Contact Information:_**

 _#428-781-178_

 _#428-815-561_

 _#428-293-293_

 _WildeTimes_

* * *

 ** _Document #1, Contract of Proposition for Distribution and Commerce Within the Bounds of East Happytown and South Sahara Square._**

 _To whom it will concern,_

 _We hereby deliver this offer of partnership between our prosperous companies that surely would lead to a glamour of numbers and hefty briefcases, unless the offer is not given the limelight deserving. Our organization deals with storage, transportation and regional commerce, due to the lateness of starting up activities because of previous issues of old owners, whom had made wrong choices of business by not embracing the new, thus withering into the inconsequential._

 _What we offer is what you need, despite it being not what you want. What happens to the unsold and that which grows old, or is refurbished and unwanted? Discarded. What lies within those discarded articles is the chance to still make up the withered losses by giving them to us to distribute and sell, without you doing anything but delivering those products to us in mass._

 _We will facilitate, store and distribute your articles of expired or unwanted commerce around the specified areas, with the appropriate methods available and allowed in the network of affiliations we have connections to, while keeping up to the standards of your company by not tarnishing the name or product, with lackluster prices that would be an ostentation conclusive. If a post-mortem is to ever occur within our company, all expenses and paperwork will be handled by us in the form of an insurance policy located in d. #7._

 _What we want of you is to deliver on transportation and payments, which would amount to thirty-five percent from the profit of the collective result of sold commerce. We believe that such is a fair number and that your company wins either way, due to us insuring the safety and availability of your product and the lack of effort to be required, due to our staunch policy of return if something would go wrong. We will require to be allowed to advertise the product in our own way without limitations, or at least with present guidance proper._

 _The full contract is attached to d. #3 and is ready to be sealed, if, there's nothing wrongfully presented or agreed upon. We sincerely wish it's vice versa._

 _We hope of hearing from you to this prolific proposition._

 ** _Signed:_**

 _Nicholas Wilde and Tristan Primale, Founders of WildeTimes_ _20.10.2009_

* * *

Zoe was engrossed in the documents and Nick could follow her eyes quickly skimming through the material, to which he sighed as the main task of showing this was concluded, thus he took the leftover time present to scrutinize the remaining facets of her body that was given view, especially now in the brighter room which had finally taken texture of wooden surroundings, despite the glass under his claws reminding him that he was in a box of illusions. He noticed the silver ring on one of her fingers and more tattoo dye underneath her forearms that was in the form of roots heading towards her elbows and beyond in probability.

Her clawed hoof reached for her empty glass and she absent-mindedly tried to take an imaginary sip, thus resulting in a petite growl of distraction. Nick was getting nervous of her need for the substance as he didn't want the doe to collapse in their presence, due to that being worse than the rejection of the deal itself… Headlines of yellow defaming them for trying to take advantage of a reputable director, huh. She shook her head in disdain and pulled the projection of documents closer to her eyes, narrowing into them, with her blues beginning to move even faster from left to right. Good thing the information they had put together was concise, a fact of success at the haste of the doe before them.

Nick wondered on which parts she had reacted badly and on which with interest, after all, her boss pressuring her meant that something, the branch she ruled of the company, was lacking. And if it was money, this small deal could turn into a great underpin for both him and Tristan, and her as well, but he went back on the cut they were going to ask for and if it was going to be realistic enough. After all, you go big and wait for the other to gainsay, right? She _leafed_ through the pages at a certain point of lost interest, while developing a stoic expression, even with the alcohol present in her system that was flowing freely and unchecked for sure.

"WildeTimes… founders…" she gave view of blue as her eyes moved around Nick and Tristan with a sort of disappointment, but then she huffed in vigor and readjusted her neck, as her attention refocused on the information in front. "Happytown, large amounts of storage, older stock required, network of affiliations… Criminal convictions for contraband, present credit loans… Can't find how much…"

While she was busy going over everything, Nick decided to have a word with Tristan on how they should proceed as she was noticing every major point from the arranged projection of documents, a bit too fast to his liking and summary, especially with the convictions and credit debt that was obscured with clever words… Thus he turned slightly and grabbed the young tod's attention with a whisper, "I think we should focus on ge—"

"Hey, I can't hear," Zoe interjected very harshly as she dropped her inspection of the ordered before her with a loud _twack of glass_ , which made Nick's heart to jump and his eyes to zero on the blue before him that spoke great frustration and focus, despite the alcohol she had impertinently drained down, while the room instantly changed to the wallpapers of summer mountains and rocky floor. The sky blazed with sun and light that made Nick's ears to lower and shoulders slightly sag. There was no time to be in awe, even if his peepers sought all of these high quality details of realism and ingenuity!

"Well… that's the point, Zoe," Nick smugly returned with trepidation within his mind if his boldness was making matters worse rather than helping them. She moved closer to her desk and loaned her elbows on the slick surface, while glaring intensely into Nick as if she had pointed a gun at his head. She wasn't giving an indication of reacting with words on this one, so he had to try and mend the damaged bridge. "But… if it's such a dire matter, I guess we can somehow _compensate_ ," he reassured as he glanced at Tristan for confirmation that was received with a sheepish nod.

There was this hotness within his body that he could feel increasing, while his attire was getting kinda unsuitable, as the urge to pant was bubbling up slowly and surely, while the sharp eyes of the doe before him was aiding in that painful process as well, until she reached for her glass and tried to take more, but to no avail, it was still empty, thus she crashed it into the table and reached for the bottle that had lost a sizable amount of its liquid. But she froze and actually grinned.

"Pour," she demanded and leaned slowly into her comfortable chair, while moving a hoof underneath her shirt and exposing part of the white fur of her belly where the red claws now had furrowed. Nick didn't know what in the Seven Hells was going on and the game she was playing, but decided against asking, or was that the intoxication within him? Thus he just gave into her demands that seemed to be increasing towards a side that was getting other parts hot. That was when he tried to sit up and reach for the wanted but was shut down almost instantly, "Not you," she pierced the air and slowly glanced at Tristan.

Nick moved his gaze at his friend, who was the sole embodiment of bewilderment, with widened ambers and brows up, at least he wasn't hanging his mouth open like a yellow-carded victim of the system. Nick _ahemed_ lowly and gave a gesture with his eyes towards the lively desk, to which Tristan tried to defy, but Nick kicked him in the shin surreptitiously, to which the dark-red tod stood up instantly and fixed his coat with a sort of scorn, until his rump moved him around the chairs and towards the space between Nick and Zoe, who were both just following his every move, and apparently, swish of bushy tail.

His long and bushy foxiness, slick figure and long muzzle, was Zoe interested in him as to get him to move around the room more, why did she want _him_ specifically to pour her glass, and why she even wanted such strange catering? Nick could see the lingering amusement in Zoe's sapphires, while Tristan was handling himself perfectly with the hints of nervousness that were visible in his paw which's fingers he was slowly playing with.

Tristan had to reach over the desk as to get the fancy square glass bottle, and Nick noticed the doe shooting very deep looks around the tail behind Tristan, while his head went through the projected screen, and she even dared to reach with her hoof and graze the fur with her sharp ends, which got Tristan to flinch but remain in composure as he gruffly took the bottle and side-stepped away from the curiously-adapted hoofs of Zoe, who in turn smiled in leer, grabbed and touched her long neck in slow motions as if suggesting something improper.

Intoxication was poured into her glass, but just as Tristan was to put back the cut square spigot, she coyly added, "Double," to which Tristan shot her an unsure eyeful, but bent under the invisible pressure and did as she had bid, with more fluid streaming down into the surroundings of container, which he then passed towards her closeness and tried to get things done, but she moved closer to the desk and leaned closer to Tristan, while Nick found the view rather, erotic…

"Shame for you," she ordered as she put her head in her paw and smiled knowingly at Tristan, who Nick could see was hesitating greatly at the need to go against her wishes, which Nick knew wouldn't result in favourable results.

"We don't have such tolerance, Mrs Carvidos. It's best if we st—" Tristan tried to use common sense and Nick savoured the way he tried to bring formalities back, but the deer had even come closer to Tristan, so much that a slight nudge forward would be entering his intimate space.

"I ordered shomething, Trickshtan, don't play foxy tricksh," she giggled through an intoxicated snort and roamed her eyes around his backside again, backside which Nick knew from experience of its enticement and attention-grabbing that it spewed like aura around of gripping power. A mote of more envy dropped in the pit of his consciousness as he licked his lips in response to the view he was offering himself as well, very unprofessional behaviour, but he could just blame it on what was consumed in blightful quantities.

Nick could see the want of his friend to retaliate, but he had advised him better, to which Tristan stepped closer to Nick and began putting unwanted fluid inside the transparent glasses, while Nick pondered if he should whisper encouragement, yet did not so as Zoe could get gloomy as she had shown dislike at being left in the dark, thus he patted Tristan's thigh out of view of the doe, and received a slow exhale and a glance of great sneer, while his tail was kept away from the prying hoofs of the doe who hadn't stripped off her marvelling of Tristan's features.

All the glasses had equal amounts and Tristan reached to put the bottle close to Zoe's side but that was when Nick's heart flinched when the doe shot for the grey paw of his friend and pulled towards herself hard, which got Tristan to lose footing and give in to the motion with a lowered tail and flat ears. Nick quickly stood from his chair and was about to dash in aid, until…

"What happened to your paw!" she exclaimed, and rotated the grey wrist, pressuring the fingers to extension, while Nick was stopped dead in his tracks in complete cognitive dysfunction.

"Huh?" Tristan only exhaled as he stood dumbfounded in the hold of the distressed femammle deer.

"Your claws, what happened to them?!" she interposed without any slurring, as if this calamity had made her sober. Then she touched the dull and short ends of his beige extensions that once had held the purpose of killing. Nick smiled, he saw an important aspect of Zoe's personality as this was a genuine worry from her part, even if it may've been used to just get in physical contact with his friend, yet her eyes were just glued to the short ends, to which Nick slowly took his seating once again in comfort that everything was fine, for now.

"Nothing?... They're just trimmed," he answered strangely and tried to pull away from her hold but she pulled back and raised her head at him as they met gazes of different hues.

"Why wo— _unacceptable_!" she exclaimed and squeezed his paw with both hoofs, while the artificial claws dug into the skin around his wrist, and Nick's ears caught the wheeze of pain that moved through the lively room like a desperate plea of help. Nick needed to intervene and aid in getting the aggressive doe to relax, as the alcohol was surely doing things to her mind, it was inevitably already affecting him as well, and he had only gulped a portion of what Zoe had.

"Because you think so?! Pft," Tristan countered sharply and harshly got himself out of the trap, which left Nick in speechlessness and Zoe in a frown of determination as her claws scraped the smooth grey fur and clanked together as the hold was escaped from. Nick saw her involuntary twitch of want to get off her comfortable seating, yet as if she forced herself to stay, as if she didn't want to show despair…

"Excactly, Trickshter," she angrily concluded and reached for the button of her shirt below the one on the top that had been unbuttoned already when they had entered. The shirt opened outwards from the definite tightness that was hugging the fit frame of the doe, and that exposed more white fur of her chest, which made Nick's blood to rush in places of unrest and the fingers of his foot to holster and scrape the glassy surface below.

"Yea?" Tristan returned as he got around and Nick's alarms in his head were ringing that wrong words were going to be used, "Why're you so invested on claws, they're impractical," he asked as he put his arms in his pockets and stood tall close to Nick, who was cheering fully within his mind about the perfect way to get Zoe off track and even get her to tell them something he was personally interested in.

"Yea, what's up with those clawers of yours. If we didn't know better, we'd think they were part of you, hah!" Nick added with energy that was an attempt to bring more warmth to the already warming room. The interest that they showed in her, it got her ears to flick and her strange eyes to widen, as if what was asked was the least expected thing in this exchange. But Nick's internal heat was getting too hard and he was sooner or later going to start panting, thus he leaned against the comfy back of the chair and exhaled as the trapped warmth escaped into the room. The clothes were first to be blamed. But then again, the situation was as hot as boiling oil.

"We aren't given what we want. So I gave it myshelf. Primal featurehs," she raised her hoof and began moving the long reds, with her gaze marvelling the fluidness, as if she were just seeing them for the first time in her life, "capable of grabbing onto and taking in by force," she grinned with a tone lost in her thoughts, while she scratched the surface before her. "Aren't they… _magnificent_?!" she asked rhetorically in this voice that held inspiration, power and tremendous attachment. Like a painter looking at their creation after the countless hours of sweat, repetition and strain, an expression of narcissism with waves reaching as high as the sky.

Instead of saying something, Nick leaned towards the desk and put his paw over, where he tapped his own, gifted by nature, claws onto the surface that in turn got Zoe's attention. She smiled in intense of pleasure at the sight.

"Some envy the others, the others envy the some… sooo… _peculiar_ …" she mused aloud and put her own hoof on the desk with her head going into the projection of division, while ogling at Nick's features with some sort of divine satisfaction. Her eyes, those sapphire blues looked different, very orderly, strangely unnatural in a way. But he blamed the alcohol buzzing his understanding of reality.

His mind held nothing, his tongue couldn't come up with anything in that particular moment of vulnerability, which Zoe had put him into with her slow and protruding words. Was it because he was agreeing with her so much that it was unnecessary even to have it confirmed, but let his body do the meticulous and important work? His confidence dropped, and he subconsciously tried to reach for Tristan, but forced himself steady on the desk as to not show her the coming weakness. He had to react somehow, anyhow…

His paw shot for the filled glass and he put it high in the air, while words accompanied the move, "To envy," to which she stared at him in befuddlement and her mouth opened as if she were to say something, but then it snapped shut in flatness, and she played with her claws in visible frustration, which then turned in amusement as she smiled genuinely. Her hoof grabbed her glass and she repeated the same actions, while Tristan murmured something under his nose and reached for his fill next to Nick.

"To envy," she repeated with a warm and gentle voice and the glasses clanked, with Zoe quickly taking it all and wheezing with claws over her short muzzle, as she shook her head in a normal reaction, while Nick wasn't able to gulp all of it and coughed intensely with the feeling of fire in his mouth. Was this some kind of rocket fuel? It was sickly and his gag reflexes were just heightened, but he knew she'd want his portion empty, thus gulped down the rest with tears around his eyes and rugged breaths between coughs that begged him to stop this treacherous abuse of distress.

Tristan tho was coping way better, as his troubles sounded more like tiny fractions of sound, he could always handle his liquor better, but even his expression was showing strain through the contents that they were being _offered_. But Zoe was handling it like a champion, instead of getting vulnerable and easy to manipulate, she was getting more demanding, while her thinking wasn't even phased, at least the rational one. Unless her appearance was to be taken into account, as she reached for another shirt button, with half her flat chest of white being exposed to both foxes' eyes and the hungry wolf getting full view in the function of chasing away those who'd think improper thoughts.

Nick knew that she didn't have breasts or any nipples there, but the exposure to the silky fur that was getting slowly more and more was sparking an inevitable reaction in his poor boxers, while Tristan just took his seat, to which Nick wanted to chuckle. But he knew better as he himself was in the same spot of inconvenience. Zoe grumbled and manipulated the projection further before her, with a new sound coming into the room and the feeling of coldness as Nick noticed the vents on the top sides of the walls from where cold air was entering and cooling the surroundings. But was it going to be enough? The scenery changed to a snowy cityscape that got the air to feel even less hospitable in the psychological aspect of order.

"Okay, you've given me thish," she enlarged pictures of the warehouse from outside and within, and text extracts that she had deemed important, "but I don't shee shpecific numr— numb… ghhhh, numbuersh," she slurred with some failed attempts, and put her impatience on the desk, to which Nick smiled and drew a long exhale through his nose that calmed his blood for a mere second.

"35 percent of profit margins from sold units by us," he declared proudly without hesitating and clasped his paws together with patience and visible cockiness to Zoe's answer and reaction, as if known what it was to be. But she just stood there and gawked at him as if he were just released from Cliffside Asylum. Her surprise moved on and she snorted, after which she giggled and put a paw over her flat, tattooed chest. It wasn't moving Nick's demeanour from the outside, but her behaviour wasn't playing friendly with his nerves. But then, then she outright began laughing and toppled over her empty glass that even so managed to drip some leftovers over the expensive desk.

What was so funny? He hadn't come here to make jokes and fool around to waste his and Tristan's time, she was acting childishly and her attractive voice now had an edge to it, with the laughter that pierced his drums of ears in an annoying way, while he was controlling himself from showing his discomfort suffocating.

"How about, nothing!" she shot mockingly and grabbed both sides of her desk, to which Nick's ears fell and he wrinkled deeply at her hostility.

"How about you reconsider," Tristan piped up from behind as he pulled his armchair closer to the desk, and angrily glared at Zoe, who had narrowed her sharpness at his. She was again awaiting silently but intently for words to come and accompany the beginning of the end. Nick wanted to intervene but trusted Tristan's capabilities to keep thy own muzzle shut.

"Creating additional revenue for you company from old or scrapped product. We can easily put in on the market and get it quickly in circulation, while there is no risk for you at all," Tristan laid onto the table and glanced at Nick to show him his queue of continuation.

"Well, besides the one for transport. The worst thing that could happen are better results that you can show your understanding boss, who's quite enjoying of breathing down your neck like an angry mother at a clueless child," the last words made Zoe to bear her teeth at Nick, who had visibly crossed a line, but she reached for her glass and bottle, from which she clumsily poured the small leftover that wasn't enough to her liking that she showed through her light growl and next words, yet she firstly interacted with the projected screen and several of the monitors on the side of the room froze in grey, while the projection gave red warning signs on the bottom corner.

Had she just disabled security?

"He'sh a brainlesh shwine, thinks that his position makes him be shomeone important. He'sh a nobody that always smellsh of mud even if whe tries to hide it. Shtinking bastard… what does he know? Nothing!" she nearly stood from her seat as she threw the bottle on her desk and gulped down the small amount from her glass that was thrown the same way onto the desk, where it rolled audibly.

 _There you are…_

Nick smirked in satisfaction that the alcohol was getting her tongue loosened, but it seemed that her stress was getting even worse, as her attached claws were just rapidly tapping on her shirt where it wasn't unbuttoned, to which he tugged on his own as the blush around his cheeks arose from the curiosity-spreading viewness.

"Fifteen percshent," she entreated gruffly, while her leg started to act on its own in hyperactivity. But the number didn't satisfy Nick at all, she was trying to lowball them even in the state of unrestrained stressfulness.

"This isn't a middleman service, we ca—"

"Ten percshent," she interjected instantly with a nasty smirk that made Nick's fist to clench.

"How about we stop bickering and actually reach mutual understanding that'll make us all happy, especially you, Zoe," Nick tried to seem empathic but the doe laughed it off, which meant that she hadn't believed a word he had said about her.

"Oh, pleashe, _Nicky_. You came here wanshting shomething from me. This compenshation is a farshce to your true selfishh intentions of profit that you're trying to pull from my end. While that foul-shmelling piece of trash's purshuing to impede my worshk!" she hit her desk primordially, and her claws managed to make small dents on the level surface, while she pulled her hoof and scraped her way in an ear-chilling nastiness that drilled the insides of the sensitive apparatuses present.

 _I've got you, you tricky and odd lady._

"You're mixing emotions with business, it's clouding your vision for what could be a great opportunity for the three of us. You can easily deal with that pestering mass of fat," Nick persisted a bit too freely under the influence, and even narrowed his jades on the surprised doe before him, as he had definitely crossed the line with these words, yet the alcohol had… made him more daring than he thought he could be. Was this going to be their downfall with Zoe cutting them off immediately due to the severity of what was given so bluntly, and in a very disrespectful way?

"Nick, don't sta—" Tristan tried but was overtalked by Zoe, which was what was least expected to happen as well in wells.

"Easy? Easy! Ha, I've tried everyshthing! He's a shtraight-arrow and there is just nothing on him! Even when it was tried –" Zoe shut her mouth as if a trap had been set, while fear spiked through her scent, and she giggled awkwardly at Nick, who was just melting with pride that he had managed to come so far with Tristan. The alcohol was getting her locks unlocked, while it had dulled his own sense of nervousness and had boosted his confidence to such a reach that he could think extremely clear, at least for now.

"Yes, we understand your issues but noth—" but Tristan's attempts were futile, Nick's mind had been made up. This deal had to pass even if he had to indulge himself in more of the corrupt, more of the slime.

"You've never tried toooo… find him another… occupational preference?" Nick had found out what she needed, what they could help her with in order to make a healthy and fruitful, business relationship. This was the needle amongst the hay, the pristine apple amongst the rot, the special fish in the sea. He had to get the doe to trust them enough so they could built upon that.

"Wha—" she tried to ask through confusion upon Nick's words, he blamed it on her dizzy state of mind.

"Accidents tend to happen, debts long due unpaid, bad mammals around at night… bad genetics," he mentioned the possibilities of how to deal with the problem and was puzzled by her truthful, almost haunted reaction. Had she played by the rules to get to where she was? She hadn't given such clues when she had asserted herself all the way until this very moment. This got him to make a mental note and to lick his gums in joy.

"You're not seriously considering that, Wilde?! The hell's wrong with you!" Tristan grabbed Nick by the shirt on his shoulder, but Nick withdrew painfully and moved the armchair closer to the uncertain doe, who had huddled her arms tight to her and had reduced the sight of fur on her body in that way.

"Where we come from, such issues are very easily resolved. There may not even be need for extremes, just aaaaa… roughing up," Nick chuckled ambitiously and gestured a fist going towards his muzzle with a tongue lolling out, to which the doe exhaled and remained silent with immense attention, while the surroundings of the office changed to a green field with distant forests. Yet Nick could see the effects of the alcohol over her, she was definitely thinking that he could not eye her burping silently… cute…

"I… I can't rishk and get affiliated with such… such transgresshionsh. It's what he wantsh to catch me do!"

"Risk, what risk? The only task you need to do is accept our deal, everything else is out of reach to you. Do you see how shimplified it is, Clawers?" Nick kinda felt how he slipped the control over words that had generated a nickname for her out of nowhere. She wasn't reacting to it, thus he just shook his head for needed sharpness. He put his paw close to her on the soft armrest, while she hugged herself and zoomed out of reality into the distant, dark forest that was all over the door and wall. Nick was starting to feel impatient and his blood was boiling from the effects of the alcohol, as briskness had just spread everywhere, while his vision was starting to sway little by little.

"Are you out of your mind? This is exactly what we are trying to get away from, asshole! Not jump into the sewers back again…" Tristan stood up with his knee buckling for a short moment, yet he held firm, with eyes that were trying to fully open, and a finger pointing accusingly at Nick, who turned around and curled his lips at the stupidity his friend was exhibiting at this very moment, a moment that he had built slowly and surely, a moment that could mean success or failure. And Tristan was trying to sabotage it by sticking to ridiculous morals of poverty.

"Shut up and sit," Nick snapped suddenly and cut the distance between his best friend, who visibly tried to defy the intimidation but took a step back, nevertheless. Nick could see the hurt in those ambers, which was trashing at his heart around underneath his ribcage, but Tristan needed to contain himself, the alcohol was making him irrational even if what was spoken held steel truth to the consistency of the idea of getting away from the corrupted world.

Yet…

They needed _this_.

Tristan's lips trembled in attempts of conjuring something but his ears fell, and he lowered his head defensively, as he took his seat with crossed arms and legs. He was hurt. Nick wanted to tell him that he hadn't meant it, that it was all in order to build this trust in front of the aggressive doe, who was intently watching both of them in druken stupor to acceptance. But he couldn't and that got his blood even hotter with shameful indecency.

Nick's seating was returned to normal, and he grabbed his knee with both paws, while intently looking into the deep blue of the unconfident doe who was drumming her claws onto the surface of her black workstation. Unspoken words were being spoken through Nick's jades of wobbled focus that even in disbalance was reachable in visibility that the pits, within the irises, held dormant in constriction to the green around.

"Twenty five," she gave in, with an almost certain tone, to which Nick groaned and threw his paws in the air, the drink having had an incredible effect on his self-esteem as he was sure that he could push his demands and get the doe to accept them, even if she had a higher ground, which was shaken by the need of having a certain problem of hers fixed.

"I don't think this is working out, guessh we'll have to inquire for someone who'd value us," Nick objected angrily and tried to take off from his seat, but sharpness drew around his wrist and got him to halt in surprise that spread itself around the area of touch, Zoe had reached for him in a matter of a second and was staring at him desperately.

"Thirty!" she exclaimed in a slur but then coughed and her despair vanished instantly as it was met with seriousness, yet it wasn't rough around the edges, but gentle. "Final offer," she proposed in audible finality and Nick narrowed his jades at her, while feeling Tristan shuffling behind him in unknown feelings.

 _Boom._

Real emotion was forbidden, he didn't want to get her to realize his game that he had played her into, even if the benefits she was going to get were substantial. Such a small downgrade was perfect, he had believed a deal would've been made around 15 and 25, but never 30. His head moved towards Tristan as if he was seeking a confirmation that he got with a roll of eyes that still held that incredible hurt, which got Nick's ears to almost fall into his skull, if not for his good abilities of self-control.

"Deal," he accepted strongly and smiled in a satisfying way, to which the doe sighed the stress out and released her grip from him, after which she did something on the projection and then it just disappeared, apparently shutting off. This had worked just perfectly, slick as honey. But then, as she giggled lowly and rubbed her thighs into one another, he suspected that this wasn't the end, as she took in one long and strong breath, with her body scent developing a sort of sweetness… The scenery changed fluently into dim light and the walls had these purple colors around the rims, while darkness just enshrouded the room, be it for the only source of vision being the hum of light from the edges of the desk and the big window at the end of the office…

"But with some… _ultimatums,_ " she coyly added and stood up from her cushioned chair for the first time, but the motion wasn't easy as she shivered on her legs and used the desk as support, while shaking her head. Her height was considerably more than Nick had imagined, she was a head and a half higher than him, with the heels helping to further addition. Her tight body that her skirt was hugging was ravishing and the exposed, tattooed chest fur was just including more to the saucepan of hotness, despite the dimness of vision that his nocturnal jades easily gave adaptation to.

A hot breath was blown by Nick, with a glance at Tristan, who was at attention as well, despite the lingering pain of exterior. Zoe bent and tapped on her console with some shakes in her hooves, to which the air around the room stopped moving, and she then licked her lips subtly. Then she moved towards the two wide-eyed foxes. But what best caught Nick's eyes was the moisture on the leathery red where she had sat. Was this what he thought it was?

 _Holy, fox!_

He wasn't going to beat around the bush and not answer himself that he had leaked from the heated exchange, but then again, it wasn't just him and that just flushed his body ecstatically. Even with the confidence, he was unsure what to do and how to act because of Tristan and the recent misadventures within confined spaces. The best was to just let it play out and see, while keeping vigilance for things to not go too far even with the nudging intoxication present.

She slowly moved in front of him and got in the middle between the two foxes, her tall figure skulking over them. She _hummed,_ turned and angled her head behind her, where the stack of papers had been dropped when they had first entered. She curled her lips and pushed the papers harshly off the desk, which got them scattered all around the dark floor, where they couldn't be seen no more from the dimness. As if they had disintegrated in the void of the endless universe.

"He won't be needshing them, hih," she giggled childishly and reached for her backside, where her medium, fluffy tail was, while the sounds of pops moved through her sides, as if buttons were being undone from their sockets, to which Nick crossed his legs as to hide what was to be hidden, and put a claw in front his chin as he watched without blinking. Her skirt's tightness loosened, and he could see both sides dangling behind her but not enough for more to be seen as her front was fully covered still.

The desk was touched by her deadly hooves and she sat fluidly, with tightly-kept legs, while the unbuttoned sides of the skirt stood in a malformed way beneath her legs. "But I'll be needshing shomething from you tshwo," she added and reached for the end of her cloth with a claw, with which she slowly pulled inwards, exposing the golden fur of her toned legs that in the past had been made and given adaptation for lots of running… specifically from predators of many motes.

"Heh, you could be our mother," Nick tried to discourage the fertile-smelling doe and Tristan _mhmed_ dronishly by his side, but Zoe instead of taking offence or stopping, only chuckled and hummed once more.

"I could…" she repeated in a disregarding manner and slipped the skirt up towards her waist, which gave view to white fur and the V of her groin that she was still keeping hidden, yet it was a matter of time until it wasn't, tho something else caught Nick's needy eyes, it was four erect nipples amidst the white fur, just at her underbelly, where a small bulge stood with pinkish skin. It had to be her udder that mammals of the branches of ruminant had, instead of breasts around their chests.

It was strangely alluring for Nick, who hadn't seen one in quite some time, while he wondered how the hell she was interested in doing this, exposing her most intimate parts when a deal was already met? Was this to seal it so they wouldn't run off. What could stop them from doing so, the idea that they could repeat the same activities? No, she wanted this, the stress had gotten her to act and the alcohol to not care, while the air itself was tickling his carnal desires and the drink was pushing his paws in imaginary places, especially to the fleshy tits around her groin within the subjective.

The skirt was dropped and it hid her privateness, but then a view to another was given as she teasingly spread her fit legs that had the shade of white on the gentle side. She wasn't wearing any underwear! Her pink shy lips came into view, shadowed by the cloth above, but Nick's nocturnals could easily see all the details around her area of intimacy that she was purposefully laying out to both tods, despite the vulnerability it'd usually spell and possibilities of danger. It was crying for attention from within the crevice of coated readiness.

It was nastily glistering in her own juices that were slowly sliding, through her precious white fur, to the adamant, lucrative desk. Sticky lack of composure shuddering for lust and flesh. Nick tried to lubricate the dryness of his throat in strain and coughed, while she tried to fix her skirt up and remove the casted darkness over her daring entrance, which worked in par her efforts as she licked one of her red fingers and moved her rump forwards to the edge of the desk as to make space for the show and work.

Her legs were now greatly spread apart, and her heels had dug into the lower part of underpin for needed support, while she leaned back and gave even more of her pinkish asshole that moved with her motions, her short and puffy tail getting pushed down and appearing like a small cushion if someone was to, service those sites of need. Paper for the rogue drops of _paint_. Nick reached for his pants and pulled, so he could readjust the painful throbbing inside, while forbidding himself from missing a single detail. He was too engrossed to see how Tristan was doing, but knew subconsciously that he was in the same swamp of excitement as he himself.

She trailed her salivated finger down her body and grazed her udder, which got her erect nipples to bounce inwards in effect, while the snowy fur furrowed by the snaking of her hoof down her dripping nethers that she reached with the oiled finger that went straight across the middle of her burning desire. Such gave view to the gentle insides that hid quickly as the sharp finger passed. Nick's intoxicated mind had only one thing in its mind: Fucking, nasty and primal fucking.

Her hoof pulled back the same path through a joyful moany-whine and she stroked the patch around her swollen clit, occasionally grazing the at-attention nipples above, while gravity pulled stickiness towards her visibly-experienced pink hole, where it was stopped fully at her tail by the angle she was at. It was doing its job properly, but they weren't. "Wshat are you two waitsing for…? Get dsown here, now," she ordered with a luscious tone in the tints of impatient despair, and Nick almost instantly recoiled up, but then his mind stopped him even through the intemperance and the instinct of lineage continuity, he wasn't a mammal to be controlled and manipulated by basic emotions, this wasn't going to happen how she wanted it, no-no. They weren't going to be her canine pets.

With paws around the armrests, he lightly stood and moved the chair with a grinding sound, so he was directly facing her shiny core, and even moved the chair closer to her so that the scent was now not only tickling his nose but actually streaking into it and onto his tongue that gave taste to need. He disengaged his crossed feet and spread his own clothed legs that gave fullness to the bulge of his member that screamed for the grip of her warm and wet embrace. He glanced at Tristan who was panting shamelessly, and gave him a gesture to do as he did, to which the young tod huffed, and with sparkles in his eyes, got into the same position close to the ready doe.

Both tods didn't do anything but ogle with zero humiliation in the gap between her legs, and Zoe realized what was going on between the delay the alcohol was enforcing.

"You wanst a sshow? Pfffff," she huffed darkly and readjusted her heels as they were losing grip from the dents in the wood, yet the view of decadence remained the same, sensual like never witnessed before. Zoe reached for her clawed hoof and pressed something on each finger which got the long claws to retract, and she removed the now-small squares from her fingers like rings… rings… she had her silver ring on that exact same hoof which she was keeping, and it kinda stifled Nick's urge to even admire, because he felt somehow sick to be a part of this.

"Aren'tsh you married," Nick tried but she did nothing but scoff mockingly while slowly oiling two of her black fingers.

"Ahs if he gives a pig's assh aboutsh me. Shsould've married shimself to his sjob," she actually spat, in the middle of the sentence, in the gap between her fingers, and reached down towards her reddening shyness. The roundness of her entrance, the white fur, the enticing scent, her now-outlined udder and rest of the body that still held some decency, even if she had removed one more button with her chest in full view of the wolf vigilant.

A _shlick_ came to life as her fingers went through her middle slobber-full, while her other hoof went at the base of her udder, where she teased herself with rotating motions. Nick was having ideas of opening the path of his trousers but decided against it, after all, Tristan was following his lead, and he had a cunning plan that'd get the doe even more desperate and gullible to their own needs of selfishness. She was sizzling with passion to be lavishly lusted upon in the most basic and animalistic of ways. Good thing for that car incident.

It used to be just one, now they were two. How fortunate… A moan echoed through the office, which got Nick to lean closer to her flaring middle that she grinded and grinded with streaks of slobber and stickiness of else that could be scented upon like a feast of smells. He wondered if the scent, his nose was full of, would have the same essence if he tried with his tongue that his mind was fantasizing of blanketing over her reddening arousal. Was it going to have the same sweet taste, would it be like honey all over the receptors of his mouth, would that lead to him trying to claim the taller prey mammal and try to sub—…

One of her fingers slipped inside, which got stickiness to pressurize out from the inner walls that made this euphoric sound for action of beautiful feminine arousal, but Nick's eyes trailed towards her blue ones and he saw exhaustion that hadn't been present ever in the sharpness-prior since they had entered. She squinted towards him in a desperate attempt to get him to act. Her plan was seen through and he pulled out his tongue that he let to drip on the floor in a teasing manner. It got her to tremble and squeeze her legs together, nearly losing the grip of heels. Her mouth moaned into her knees and shoulders huddled close.

Her hoof took haste as she grinded herself harder, but then she just unplugged her finger out herself with a loud plop, and she fell flat on the desk, hitting her head flat on the surface in a grunt, while her legs gave way to gravity and reduced the spread of her carnality, which glistened 'neath the romantic light and air of hospitality.

"Ugh, what'sh the matter witsh you two," she urged through a surrenderful scoff and raised herself up in a deadpan, while Nick leaned into his chair and put his paws on each side of his inner thighs, in the midst of his daring mask of smirk.

"Make us," came Nick's cocky voice that kinda surprised himself more than the doe before him. His paw reached for the outline of his wretched trousers and squeezed the bulge before the now-flaring eyes of the heated deer. She actually bit her lip.

"Oh, yo— wretcshed foxesh," she couldn't muster any anger in her voice as it spilled in surrender at the failure of her _great_ efforts, as if she had realized that the prize was bigger than she had initially thought, which meant a bigger reward down the rocky road. Her legs moved towards both tods' groins, and Nick felt her heel go under his stiff rod and touch his pretentious orbs, while she grinded into his erection with the rest of the golden shoe, to which Nick moaned silently and looked at Tristan, who was to surely receive the same treatment. He appeared very apprehensive at the contact, maybe Nick was letting her go too far?

He liked the touch, the care he was receiving from this influential and exquisite mammal, who had just pleasured herself in lust not even a minute ago, now going as far as trying to pleasure them both in a very unconventional way with her strange appearance that was right now giving off ecstatic signals from where the contact was being made. But it didn't reign for long as she sighed again from impatience.

"You're both harsd, shtrip," she ordered plainly, as she pulled one of her legs over the desk as if she was posing for a dirty photo that was giving view to her toned leg and dripping buzz of pink, yet Nick rubbed the top of his muzzle and wondered what she'd do if he went to her and did this his way. But as nothing happened but just more of the previous from the two tods, Zoe abruptly slid from the desk and stood tall over them with a leaking scowl on her mouth. She surely was something else, and Nick could feel actually intimidated by her, especially since her own body was evidently stronger than his, no matter if she was a doe.

"I shaid shomthing!" she slurred and wobbled on her heels with her glare that moved on them both, until it was fixated on Tristan, whose ears were coating his skull already. Nick couldn't figure anything at all during that moment, he had frozen totally due to all the mixed emotions that had went through him in the span of uncounted seconds. She sidestepped towards the dark-furred tod and arched her back towards the frame of defensive fox, who had huddles his arms in front himself.

Her hoofs supported her on the behind of the armchair and she coughed in Tristan's direction, yet instead of stopping, her clawed hoof got behind the neck of the anxious male, wrapping itself fully from back to front as if in a trap.

"What are yo—" Tristan's words were smouldered as she leaned her elbows into the back of the armchair in a motion that pulled the tod's head down towards her skirt that she pulled up with her free unclawed hoof.

"Get thasht moutsh to work," she bickered and pushed his long muzzle even lower, to which a muffled yell came from underneath her fur as she was trapping his body with hers.

"N-no, s-top!" Tristan drew from underneath in muffle. Nick was brought to his senses to what was going on at last and jumped out of the now-uncomfortable resting spot, the alluring sight now having turned into a disgusting attempt of forcefulness.

"Get away from him!"

Tristan was desperately trying to get away from under her but she was stronger, she was intoxicated and apparently had forgotten herself, thus Nick grabbed the arm that was propped on the back of the chair and pulled with all his might, which resulted in him feeling a lot of strain in his muscles,

"Ge-e-t… off!"

But the doe did budge as the shock got her body to release the tension and follow the flow that got her rump to bump itself into the desk, while she put both hoofs on the sides and just stared at both foxes, a glistering string from her core rotating below her skirt.

Nick quickly checked on Tristan, whose fur around his head was steeply ruffled, while the side of his eyes held the traces of consternation that made Nick's fangs to bare and his body to quickly move in front of his friend, while his posture took in the aggressive wildness of when danger upon those loved would be present. It made him stop giving a fuck about the deal and whatever else was there in this world at that very moment, his malice was leaking from his maw and Zoe received the message loud and clear.

From shock, Nick noticed humiliation but it didn't live long as the hologram on the desk flared to life in the colors of red, while the room filled itself with more of the same. A rather jeering contrast to Nick's own vision of what he was going to do if she hadn't backed off. He turned around yet again and lowered his head close to Tristan's, putting his paws around his face that initially flinched but then relaxed as the teary ambers saw who was in front.

"It's alright, nothing's going to happen to you, Bookey, I promise you. Just follow my lead."

" _Carvidos, we're to hold an emergency session in the Capital. Get your hindquarters over here ASAP!_ " The new voice in the room made Nick turn his head towards the desk, where he could see the administrator bend forward and looking into the hologram, half-way in support and the skirt hanging on the sides, with the irritated slit of her vulva in the middle. Nick wanted to confront her for what she had tried to do, yet this was more complicated than it had initially appeared. She had said she wanted something as well from them… It wasn't hard to guess what it was anymore.

Because the position they were in was volatile and his partner's head was screwed up for now due to what had happened, Nick reached for his smartphone and activated the camera quickly and surreptitiously.

"I'm in the middle of shomething, can't I shend someone?!" Her tail fell and she spread her legs a bit, which earned leakage right from the crevice of her sensuality that had wanted to be catered to just less than a minute ago, in a way many would've wished. Still, that didn't make it less wrong and awful. He quickly snapped a few photos of her nakedness and pocketed the device of future blackmail possible that they could use to make her do what they wanted.

" _Are you dr— Transport is en route. Immediately depart, no absolvements!"_ the voice shouted through unseen speakers.

"I need sh—" Zoe tried to interject but the line went dead, and the surrounding changed to a slow and soundless waterfall. She moaned from exasperation and readjusted herself so she wasn't spreading herself as much. A very visible shiver ran around her body, which got a string of fluid to stick to her troubled fur, while she reached between her legs with one hoof and nearly touched herself.

But then she just hit the desk and pushed herself off, rising to her full height and getting the skirt to prove her decency, while Nick was just following her movements in his own full length, with Tristan behind him, in an instinctive way to put a barrier between him and her. She tried to do the buttons on her skirt but lost balance and held to the only support, the desk, while rotating around and meeting irritated blue with such of jade.

"What you did, it wa—"

"Shut your mouth, fox," she interjected Nick's words in ice through sobriety and overflowing indignation, it surely had to do something with being denied and the orders from above. "Both your composhh— composures, rarity to witness," she began but then she pointed sharp red at Nick promisingly.

"But I'll get what I want, otherwishe you can kiss this deal's ash." She moved away her support and steadied herself well, as if the alcohol had just poured away from her skin like steam. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons once more. "It's going to be him… or you." The conclusion was like a hammer's last strike upon the anvil, with her skirt being collected into impregnable decency once more.

Of course, what was left was her fully exposed upper half that she began giving fixing, while getting around the desk and towards her rightful place of power. Nick didn't know what to say, the demand wasn't too much, yet it wasn't little either as it felt degrading, despite the sexual gratification such could prove forth. Her aggressiveness a minute ago gave him chills around his limbs and he just stood there with Tristan behind him, who was hesitantly touching Nick's electrified tail.

Zoe got something out from the desk and popped it into her mouth, while the room developed bleakness as all the automation of scenery just disappeared, turning into transparent glass behind which the structure of wood could be seen. Nick knew that their time here was over, thus he moved aside and got his briefcase in paw, yet he stopped there and waited for her to return what was theirs.

The hologram on the desk was interacted with for some uncomfortable moments where Nick pondered on why this had to even happen, and if this was some insane coincidence the devil had chosen to occur. Of course, if sacrifices had to be made, he could take it upon his shoulders and bear it so that the future's pillars could be underpinned for the roof to come. Still, it wasn't his decision to make, not after today's events.

Zoe put on her simple, yet lucrative coat on, she pocketed the kerndrive in it without even giving either foxes a glance, tho Tristan wouldn't have caught it even if one was given, due to him being fixated on his paws and nothing else.

At that very moment, just when she pulled out a cigar from her inner pocket of her velvet coat, he saw her right eye to brighten within the pupil and the iris' color found more depth, it got him to just stare without blink at her, and she froze just then too, her eyebrows going up with her eyes following a trace that ended in Nick's jades, where the reflection within was one of an increasing smirk of maliciousness. It made Nick smile awkwardly at her and point at her as if he was playing innocent to having had eyed her, tho his brain was telling him that she wasn't giving him the attention because of that.

The hologram extinguished and the big window began closing from the sides, filling the office with slow darkness, thus Nick tried to head towards the door but saw that Tristan was currently in his subjective reality, to which Nick grabbed the underside of his friend's arm and guided him to the sealed door. Tristan did finally get to his senses after some paces and shamefully mouthed a sorry to Nick, who rubbed his friend's back understandingly.

Zoe came by them, after some moments from Nick's side, the scent of need still spreading around her, still invading his nostrils with current annoyance. But then she moved into his personal space and got closer to Tristan who tried to go around Nick in cower, yet Nick grabbed him and held him still as he didn't want him to allow himself be controlled, bullied and used. He needed to face his anguish head on, despite Nick's own heart spreading the disease of hate for doing this.

"We'll be seeing each other soon. I want a report on our… mutual problem—"

"How is it mutual, it's _yours_."

"It's mine, it becomes yours as well, Nicky. The rest…" her clawed hoof reached for Tristan and touched his collar that got the tod to shift his weight around and keep his eyes away from her. "You'll find out." Her grin broke towards Nick as she visibly had lost interest in the dark-furred tod. Her body moved closer to his, and for a moment Nick thought she was going to force herself on him as she licked her lips, cigar in hoof. Yet, she moved a bit to the side and grabbed the back of his neck, her tongue close to his ear where she gave whisper to.

"Careful how you use that, Mr Wilde. Personal consumption is the only forgiveness I can grant," she moved back and stared into his shocked eyes. Was she referring to… No, she couldn't have seen any of it as it had happened in split moments, maybe there was some kind of— The blue of her irises increased vibrance and Nick swore he saw the reflections of a memorable view, but a different angle of what he had done at that quick snap of past.

"Wh— w-what is that?!" Nick asked meekly in surrender as he couldn't muster anything to this strange and insane witnessing of… it was even magical in its own way. Zoe giggled and shook her head, her claws furrowing through the fur on the back of his head, motions that felt like savours, nothing more or less.

"Chimeras, sweetheart. Ugh, you were way more fun when confident…" she breathed out into his nose, the scent of alcohol making him wince, while her paw reached for his cheek, and she tapped him one-two times in jest. Then her hoof moved towards his own paw and he felt the solidity of a small object that his fingers caught and moved closer to his chest, while the doe got away from them and reached for the other side of the door where its joints were. The kerndrive, she hadn't forgotten to give it back and he smiled lightly as he cached it safe. What the hell were chimeras? Could she see through walls… or pants?!

He felt a bit more self-conscious about himself and rubbed his arm, while getting close to Tristan who was fully apathetic and detached from all of this, Nick could not blame him at all. The strange part about Zoe tho was that she wasn't acting drunk anymore, no slurs, no sways, nothing but the history of scent in her prey mouth.

" _Lockdown in effect._ _Ocular recognition requested, please stand in front of the device in order to complete the process._ " The emotionless and rather robotic voice said, and Zoe did that easily as she had surely done it hundreds of times, and the projection before her turned green, to which the office surroundings extinguished and the wooden door automatically opened to the hallway. " _Have a good meeting, Director Carvidos. Your ride is expected in five minutes._ "

They exited into the hallway and the door shut tight. Nick pondered how much versatility this place had and how much integrations the doe had in her body. He was greatly invested in finding about those chimeras tho, it was killing him from the inside from outright asking her about it.

Nick knew that they didn't need to walk with her, but it seemed as if they were heading to a mutual direction, thus he saw no harm in doing so. He buttoned his coat and moved, with the briefcase in paw, next to the taller femammle who was making an echoing sound with every step of her heels. She was giving such a strong aura of power and self-esteem, while just a few minutes ago she was naked and ready to be fucked on her own desk. A crazy thing was the animalistic desire for comfort and release of stress…

"Thank you for coming over and representing this offer of WildeTimes, Mr Wilde, Mr Primale. Likeliness of further correspondence is within satisfying bounds," she concluded with a formal detachment, and stopped suddenly before the big rhino, who was in the same spot as before, he tho looked a bit even more irritated, when he noticed who was before him. Her head slowly moved towards the mass of meat and she light up her cigar at that very moment, puffing the smoke towards him without a drop of care.

"Move aside you lumbering oaf!" she demanded as she took a step forward, which made Nick's tail to turn into needles at the boldness she was showing, still… she was the administrator after all, she could do whatever she wanted within the guidelines of acceptable. Hah, what a joke that sentence was. The rhino grunted and stepped aside, which gave view to two silver doors with a silver frame and the same security checkpoint on their side, where Zoe repeated the same process like the one in her office.

She didn't utter more words or give more glances as the doors opened, and she disappeared into the unknown path where that was going to lead her. They wanted her to go to the capital, which surely meant the capital of Mammalia that was Cyrsia. But that was nearly one thousand kilometers away from Zootopia. What, she was going to take a helicopter to the airport, pft!... On another note, Nick wouldn't have been surprised if she did.

The rhino returned to his same spot and crossed his hooves, while sending his glare to the two infinitesimal foxes before him. Nick didn't like the stink eye they were receiving and decided to poke the hornet's nest.

"You almost fainted there, Crossy, better be careful next time," Nick mocked maliciously to which the rhino grunted so hard that the sound that came was like an explosion, which got Nick's tail to go between his legs, thus being carried fast to the escape pod that was the elevator to freedom.

They took the elevator down, and even if Nick wanted to talk with Tristan about what had happened, even if the alcohol in his blood was trying to get him not to care, his muzzle was kept shut as he knew that the walls had ears and nobody needed to know what had happened in that office, it could not only jeopardize Zoe but them too, as then the deal would crumble into the pile of ash with a possible backfire of the doe, who surely would retaliate if they were responsible for the end of her career.

Yet, he wanted to explain himself to his friend who was just despondent, he wanted to comfort him for having to relive the traumatic past that her behaviour had brought up. He hadn't expected for her to reach this far, none of this was expected at all. But she had been a visible catalyst of unpredictability, he should've known better, he wasn't a stupid kit anymore! There were responsibilities now.

But what was done was done. Now, now they needed to mend wounds and make decisions. First tho, he needed to bring back his lovable friend into the reality.

The doors opened, and with a shallow breath that wasn't enough for him to feel comfortable with all this poison in his blood, they carried themselves to the exit, which Nick was anticipating with great desire. But just as they passed the bubbling fountain, Nick glanced at the reception desk, where the ocelot had her head into her two paws, as she stared aimlessly from her spot. He just couldn't hold himself and waved at her with the nastiest grin possible.

"Way to hustle, Amanda. You were priceless, I love ya, I owe ya!" he snickered into his paw and saw her bare her teeth, but they were now too far away to hear if she was growling, yet her expression told him more than needed, so he released his laughter that filled the hollow tree to the ceiling top. Some real positiveness since the clouds of enshrouded cold in that office.

They got to security, where their card was returned back, with the exit following soon, and they were again met with the humidity of the district, which got Nick's cheerfulness from Amanda's ire to fade. The air was again heavy to which the effects of the alcohol were even worsened, as he lost his balance for a moment and rubbed his forehead from a slight headache.

Composure was regained and Nick saw Tristan already having reached the end of the stairs and strangler fig cloud, as he headed down the platform, which got Nick's heart to shock in place and his feet to rush after his depressed friend, whose tail was brushing the ground like a ruined broom.

"Wa—" Nick grunted as he jumped before the last steps, the gap between him and Tristan was becoming smaller, but his heart's pain was becoming bigger. The scent of sorrow got to his nose with that same familiar musk that got him slightly excited, while the memories and sounds of that exact moment were getting all his instincts to just try and comfort his friend.

His auburn paw grabbed the grey of his friend and pulled to the side, so they wouldn't be in the middle of the path, which got Tristan to lose his breath audibly and stumble towards Nick, to which Nick threw the briefcase against an elephant ear plant and embraced Tristan into a hug as he was feeling great affection and need to be close, the idea that they had made the deal, they had seen and felt excitement and success, gotten sexually abused… all in the matter of less than an hour…

"C'mon, buddy. It's all in the past, don't go back there, awight? She's gone, she is no longer part of your life. I'm here with you, I've always been…" Nick gently assured into the ears of the troubled tod but didn't receive any reaction. Contempt, it began pulling on Nick's legs as he was responsible for what had happened in a way of ways. At least what he could offer, he knew it was unfreezing the chills of pain within his friend.

Movement traced around his coat's back, until a stronger grip came into the form of a hug that finished the circle around the two males. He had gotten to him, he had broken through the barrier of black.

The moment was timeless, the calmness had seeped through Nick's fur and he didn't want to disengage. Rarely would one experience such bliss under the quick and hustling life all around, rarely would he feel safe in the middle of the wild outside. But in this small intimate hoop, it was as if walls tall were around them and only they were in this world… Everso, even the best of euphorias had to have an end, he wanted to experience this in more comfortable surroundings with extra sheets.

"Better?" Nick carefully whispered and shortly after got a nod of head next to him, to which he withdrew and just intoxicated himself into the new fire within the ambers before him. He couldn't stop himself, he saw beauty before him, despite beauty's shortcomings. Feeling like this, he wanted more, he didn't lust it, he just fundamentally needed it. Thus Nick moved his muzzle against Tristan's and their lips melted in pleasure to the wetness. It wasn't long, nor was it short. It was enough, it was all Nick's heart needed, it was visibly what Tristan needed in par.

"Let's head home, you sweet foxie," Nick tried to conclude and begin their momentum but was made immobile by Tristan's paws.

"Wai— we don't have to with the balloon." Nick was stumbled in strangeness. He titled at his beaming friend with great puzzlement and just furrowed his brows together in a questioning manner, while Tristan pointed his muzzle to the side and gestured his head forward, to which Nick turned around and saw cables with moving boxes of green that were attached to that said support above, while moving towards unknown destinations.

"The gondolas?" Nick asked, while his mind tried to find reasoning of why Tristan had even mentioned them, until it hit him from the words prior mentioned, and he turned around with a loud and hesitant chuckle, "your idea for romance is as dull as the mals in Happy," Nick joked and began moving with rubbing motions on his amused muzzle.

"He— it's dull? I think they'll be interesting…" Tristan dragged with dropping confidence that got Nick's ears to lower, but he was exhausted and wanted them to reach the last destination as soon as possible. Romance could commence after that in whatever form it would do so.

"We've drank, the whole place reeks of suffocation, water in my fur and cameras inside those cabins," Nick recited by common sense and memory, to which Tristan's ears fell.

"Well, you can't drive, they go high up where the air is fresh. We can… we can cover the camera!" Tristan countered the last part with the leftovers of his composure, as he rolled his tail around Nick's rump and tugged on the inside of his belt, to which Nick gulped but shook his head in decline.

"We've got to fill in the others, explain to Trot why we left him out of this, get the other documents, call lawyers. We can't, Trist," Nick reasoned concretely and felt the disappointment around Tristan, but he just really wasn't up for such activities there because personally, he was feeling very bashful about even imagining it, even tho the taste in his mouth was very much to his strange interest that he wasn't willing to express in words. He mused that he just wanted to get things done quickly so they could later have the reward of funly-fun in the end of the day.

"Okay…" Tristan relented and began moving in front, while Nick sighed moodily at the disappointment he had served, yet the day was still alive, and he could always make a surprise worth the painful moments of the previous.

After all, he was really looking forward to the night. The car was a small portion of the possibilities and the unexplored that gave him curious anxiety without a pit below that could rake within the infinite prior show.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	17. Mr Reaper

**Chapter Seventeen**

 **Mr Reaper**

Being late afternoon, the two red foxes climbed off the basket of the hot air balloon they had been transported with. It was that same platform of the dock from where one had been forcefully pushed, and the other nearly swallowed in the discolored nastiness of swamp, if not for luck and the fateful dices written. Nick gave a lazy salute at the brown bear who was operating the flying apparatus, but the mammal saw the gesture and gave the fox the middle finger, with curled lips of ire, to which Nick returned a quick and mocking kiss of air, as he couldn't take this to heart simply because his mood was bliss, and second, he didn't give a fox's shit.

"This was actually interesting. Didn't reek of mud and rot like that putrid ship…" Nick expressed aloud as they moved down the slope and towards the lower part of the dock, while mammals walked loud and silent.

"But there was that bear… telling us to get away from the other passengers… dumb bully…" Tristan mumbled in frustration, but Nick put his arm across Tristan's back and tugged playfully with warmth.

"He's sore and mad at the world around him, being punished for the things he'll do. Such bad luck to be him," Nick laughed and noticed the parking lot that had less cars than he could remember, which was strange as now mammals were supposed to be going to their homes, thus more traffic, but the only mammals he could see were those that had climbed into the basket as they left, and a few others who were now way behind them.

"You didn't have to grab my tail there, there were kits…"

"Returning the given! And they don't see it as we do, _Trickstan_ , phah," Nick joked and slapped Tristan's back, to which the tod shouldered into Nick and got him at a distance, as he murmured something under his breath. "You can't argue it, she took a liking to us, more than necessary I figure. But you know how drunks are," Nick teased as they got into the open, where rain actually wasn't dropping, which got Nick's heart to squeeze in tints of daunt if something was wrong, but he forgot about it quickly and based it on dumb superstition. Tho not having rain at a place like this… it felt as if this was an aggravating dream of horror.

"Ughm…" Tristan tried to say something but shut his muzzle, to which Nick took note to ask what the issue was, but then his eyes caught sight of the cameras around the place, they were tilted down and aimed at nothing but the ground, all of them… The sound of engine roared from somewhere and a medium car began exiting the place, while Nick's instincts were whispering at him that something was very wrong… No rain, no surveillance… as if this sector was specifically controlled to be isolated.

His eyes glanced towards the dock, where he could see two larger mammals slowly progressing towards them, while the sound of doors opening at the parking lot got him to spot a hippo and an elk with very informal clothing, who began moving towards the dock. But why was he tracing all this movement, he was being paranoid as the cameras may be under maintenance just like the sprinkling systems, yet where were the mammals responsible for these repairs. Tho, no wonder it'd need such with all this moisture trying to sneak into the cables' cracks, but such couldn't be easily seen due to having been created within the architecture of the place as to make it look most natural. Where were the wretched technicians then?

They reached their compact car, and Tristan unlocked his door slowly with balanced dejection that was getting Nick to worry now. His ambers grazed into Nick and the keys were thrown, but Nick didn't manage to catch them as his worry overcame his sharpness of reflex, which got him to sigh and lean to the macadam ground, from where he easily hooked the key in his black claw.

"What's bugging you?" Nick asked as he put the key in the lock and twisted, with eyes finally going over to Tristan and waiting patiently for his worries to manifest into information.

"What's the plan with _her_ … and with _us…_ " Tristan uncertainly gave inquiry through long pauses, to which Nick at first just looked at him stupidly, and that managed to get him to catch the drift, thus he sighed and tapped the roof of the coupe.

"We'll talk about it. First, let's wrap things up, 'kay?" Nick gently answered and tilted his head, to which Tristan zoned out for a moment of thinking and then nodded with a tug of clean smile. They entered the car and Nick threw the briefcase on the rear deck, while inhaling deeply and evaluating if he was going to be a danger to the other drivers on the vast networks of roads that lead to Happytown. The alcohol had lost its initial effects and time had surely passed, but if he was to be given a breathalyzer, his license could go to hell with jail time in between that would get his whiskers to grow long and rump probably better thought not about.

That got him to shiver but he was sure in his capabilities to drive and be unnoticed for strange behavior on the road. As long as he drove normally, no one would stop him, unless bad luck was to be present and he was to be pulled over randomly. Well, the chance was going to be taken, that was what he decided, and with that the engine revved to life, while Tristan didn't argue as they both had come to an agreement, even if it had taken some time and lots of words.

"Everything'll be fine," Nick reassured with a wink and changed to reverse, with some scrunching in the gearbox, as he hadn't pushed the clutch fully, which got him to snicker to himself and press on the gas that got the car moving backwards. He rolled the wheel a full left and then straightened as the car came to a stop. Before them was the macadam road that had become narrow from the parked cars in the middle now, which would make it tricky if a car was to come from the other side.

A glance at the mirror was thrown, and he saw that same hippo staying idly nearby at the side of a big car, while intently scrutinizing at them, which got Nick creeped out and that fueled his resolve to press the pedal to the floor, which got the back wheels rolling and the rocks flying in random directions, thus hitting the cars behind. But Nick didn't seem to care, the paranoia was now fully entangled in his clothes and fur despite all the luck and yield the day had offered them full.

A serious yelp came from Tristan who hadn't even fastened his seatbelt, not that Nick had done so either, as he'd do it during the driving itself. But Nick couldn't get himself to stop and sped through the lot. The end was visible and the ascent in the distance was becoming bigger and bigger, the place where asphalt actually was present. His eyes caught a rusty van just to the end that was protruding above the rest of the cars, maybe it was part of the district, abandoned and overtaken b—

"What're you doing—"

No, there were no vines around it, no old leaves, it was parked around today… it wasn't there when they had arrived first! His heart shrunk with searing cramping, his paws gripped the wheel harder and he tried to push on the pedal even more desperately, but to no avail, the car wasn't a racing one and changing of gears was fruitless as it didn't have enough power.

His paranoid consternation became a reality. Black smoke swarmed on the path before them and the van reversed into their way, which in turn got it fully blocked and Nick's feet dug into the brake that got everything to screech around them, and the car to sway left and right from the painful stop of now-hot metal.

Primal dismay, instinct for preservation no matter the cost. The gear was changed, and he harshly released the clutch, so the car groaned backwards, with burnout from the insane revolutions within the engine. The van's backdoors opened, one even hitting a nearby car's rear, and from there came out mammals in balaclavas and full black outfits.

 _No… please…_

Just as he was to turn around as to see where the car was going, so he could get out the blockade, a loud crash got him to smash into his seat and release the pedals, which nearly chocked the car from the sudden stop but he pressed on the clutch and kept it breathing. Had he hit another car? But he had angled perfectly, they were in the middle! His head swooshed to see, and he saw that same lurking hippo in full form, who was acting as a barrier and was huffing loudly in the laborious expression of strain.

Nick pressed hard onto the gas, which got the car to spew more rocks from the macadam and into the hippo, who at that pushed all his weight against the car, it moved side to side, to which Nick decided that enough was enough.

"Seatbelt!" he shouted at Tristan and could see the mammals from the van getting closer in a rush, so he shifted in first gear and decided that this was unavoidable. But just as he was to move towards the unprofitable calamity, the car groaned and began… being lifted?

The engine was at its peak as it yelled wretchedly, but they weren't moving, so Nick looked back again and could see the head of the hippo who showed exhaustion, yet he had lifted the backside in the air, the car being rear-wheeled…

"Out-OUT!" Nick shouted forlornly, but just as he was to reach for the handle of the door, the mammals came at the front and matched their weapons towards the two foxes who just stood motionless and speechless, while the engine had now found peace within the normality of its pace.

"Kill the engine," came a disgruntled but rather gentle voice, to which Nick hesitated but did as he was bid with the sound of ringing replacing the ambience. That was when a loud crash came as the car was dropped with the exclamation sounds of the hippo behind them, who appeared rather faint in the mirror, a sort of tremble ensuing as the big mammal rested himself on the trunk and got the suspensions to shriek once. Two of the masked mammals moved around the car and quickly opened both doors, while Nick tried everything in his mind to find an exit from this… dead end.

"We hav—" Nick tried but was grabbed by the bigger mammal and pulled out onto the uneven and rocky floor that got him to whimper, as he was dragged towards the front of the coupe. His ears caught Tristan's miserable whimpers and shouts, as the seatbelt he had put had made his exit slower, to which Nick's rage tried to come by, but then he saw his precious partner being walked to the same place by a mammal that appeared to be smaller than him.

Tristan was brought to his knees and just as he was to say something, the smaller mammal swung the pistol and knocked Tristan out cold to the moist and stiff ground uneven, to which Nick yelled from the top of his lungs, "No-n— The hell's wrong wi- Get the fuck awa—" But his words were clipped by a hard kick into his ribs that got his gasp out forcefully, and his paw ran for the spot of searing damage that could've been caused by cracks in his bones, yet his paw was caught and pulled to disbalance him.

He felt someone grab him by his hackles and yank him, to which his eyes saw the hate in the big mammal's brown pits, but his painful observations were cut short when a heavy fist collided with his muzzle and rattled his whole brain inside his skull. He tried to breathe, but only what came was the scent of his own blood.

Another blow came and his mind began to fade, his limbs were no longer his own and his thoughts scattered…

The only thought he could hold on to…

 _Why…_

* * *

Throbbing hurt in tints of red and white amidst the darkest black that appeared to have been more than it'd seem, for which the undoubtful view gave true to the dreadful and painful new. Coldness and roughness could be felt, while the increasing sounds of vibrations and creaks were starting to overtake the wobbling black and giving imagination to new and strange shapes.

Thoughts came sneaking in through the cracks of consciousness in the form of memories which either lacked or had sense. Vision came but it was blurry, and it shut off the moment sickness spasmed inside the middle of his head, to which he groaned hurtfully and tried to move, yet nothing happened. Breaths of need filled his lungs with his heartbeat going over the previous pace.

 _Where… am I?_

Blurriness entered again as he tried to eat up the details around him, which were greatly dimmed, yet there were these shapes that resembled… mammals? He tried to stand up again but the new sensation of tightness came to be around all his limbs, to which he squirmed in a whimper that gave life to nothing. Disorientation, if these mammals were in the same place as him, he could ask them to help him, maybe they were in the same position as him, maybe they could fill in the gaps?

"H-Hello?" he weakly uttered, while his vision began bettering, "w-who're you, w-where am I?" The blurriness faded and his nocturnal sight gave new images to metal confines and a big mammal, who stood up and took a knee in front of Nick, but this mammal had that same familiar face and eyes of awfulness, and Nick's mind easily found memories that got his insides to twist in knots of primal frost.

"Shat es shit moath, bitch!" came the sneer of the gruff voice and brutish mammal shape.

"Wait, y-you don't understand! We've d-done nothing wrong, if you just give me a cha—" Nick hastily sputtered, but the mammal slowly reached for Nick's chest, with a closed fist, and began putting pressure onto his ribcage that increased with every second, to which Nick winced at first, then the feeling of this immeasurable weight began crushing into him and the cold frame behind him, which got his air to fall through his teeth of his snapped mouth. He couldn't hold it anymore and shrieked in crushing pain, while trying to move his body away from this hydraulic press of hardness.

"Words be pain," the mammal growled and angled its knuckles in such a way that the spot of pressure came in between two of his ribs.

"O-okay! Ok-a-y, st…op!" Nick yelled but that visibly angered the mammal, who was torturing him, and it earned Nick intense probing between the space of his ribs that got him to just lose himself in anguish, because his own ribs were moving apart from one another, as his whole body glued itself into the wall behind him, with the bones making contact crunching from the might of big, and it was a matter of time when they'd crack or brake, be it in front or at the back. He had to shut up, to keep his tongue motionless, was it so hard for him not to try and talk out of this situation. Yes, it was nightmarishly so!

He wanted to beg for this to stop, to explain that he hadn't done nothing wrong but minded his own business, he was going to offer what everyone usually wanted and needed, but the bastard had been clear, _shut up_ … or else. But how could he keep silent when the side of his chest and the bones on his back were given attempts at mincing jelly, as if the spots of crushing hell were spreading like roots of venomous and mindless sharpness…

But then it all subsided and the mammal's hoof withdrew from Nick's painfully throbbing chest, and that got him to fall to the side on something… warm, soft and familiarly-smelling? Nick's eyes kept at his torturer and apparent kidnapper, who glowered for several moments, until a huff came by that started the moment of him moving away and back to his seat, which gave view to his short tail and feet that looked like that of a hippo, it was that same guy! The hippo returned on his seat heavily, thus giving more sway to the in-motion vehicle and some loudness from the front.

The memorable musk got to Nick's nostrils in more yields, which got his head to snap onto what he had fallen. It was Tristan laying motionlessly on the unhospitable metal floor of rust that surely had been stripped off its previous coverage of past. Nick's heart fell with a whimper as he thought that the worse had happened, yet the warmth that was emanating through the tod's coat got his mouth to remain sealed.

His body squirmed closer to his visibly tied friend, whose shallow breaths were overtaken by the loud grumbling at the front, which was divided by this specially-made wall of iron with a door in the middle and bars at the top. This had to be the van's back, the one that he had almost ran into with the car, the one he should've crashed unconditionally because now they were headed towards an unknown and deadly future with their lives at mortal stakes.

Nick wanted to call for Tristan, to wake him up and talk to him, because his head was running through many scenarios that none had any optimism for that which was plaguing his lungs and mind. The spread of pain around his chest was lessening, but his head's insides felt heavy and very sensitive with each movement of it, which got him closer to his tilted partner. Shockingly, he stopped as he thought that the big mammal would come back and hurt him or hurt his closest partner, yet a glance told him that the brute was only going to cause issues if talking was done, which got him to gulp and squirm closer to Tristan, who was somehow making the dread less just by being there.

The claws on his paws were immobilized into the rope with addition to his legs but that gave way to new possibilities, as he wormed slowly to his partner, who was facing the van's wall. Nick squirmed himself into the gap of the wall and the appreciated warmth, it was slow progress and silent at that, but the rumbling front was giving leeway to such, while the big mammal seemed as if he didn't really care for this, which could lead to an opportunity for escape. Yet… why hadn't they been blindfolded.

" _Tris_ … _T-Triiiiis_ ," Nick whispered with a faint hiss, but there was no reaction from his partner, just those same shallow breaths, and Nick even saw blood close to one of Tristan's ears, which got his throat to release a whimper of empathy. Such a good-hearted mammal to receive such cruelty… for nothing, he wasn't responsible for anything, why the hell did they have to hit him like that, why had they taken _him_ …

" _Hey, bro… wake up… w-wake up,_ " Nick whimpered as his head finally managed to reach Tristan's chest, so now he could feel it contracting with a somehow unsteady pace. Was something happening with him? Nick's body tried to go closer but their clothes had become a decent barrier of friction that was making it impossible for any more movement forward, while the numbing discomfort around Nick's paws was getting his frustrated annoyance to boil around the tip of his impatience that kept the fire for freedom burning greater by every passing moment of spite.

A grumble, one different from that of the mechanical beast of the industrial revolution, his jades shot at the masked figure and waited for a response worse than before, but the mammal's stomach became bigger and a loud burp with great notes of disgust echoed and latched onto the insides of the rusty coffin. A false alert, it got that specific stress out of his mind, but then, as he moved to look at the mammal he cared for, his guts became tied in barbed wire.

It was Tristan, gawking without focus and lacking any idea of what was going on, his lips were trembling and it was just a matter of time before…. "My h-head!" he whimpered in such distinguishable agony that got Nick's fur to turn into reverse needles that dug into his skin. "The h-hell!?" he continued with these ear-chilling yelps that were making Nick's eyes sting.

" _Boo— it's okay, jus—quiet, b-buddy,_ " Nick whispered with the most fear-stricken voice he had ever made, as witnessing the trampling, which was caused to him, upon his closest friend was in no comparison capable of contrast to the pain already endured, simply because it was worse. But the big mammal had heard the loud ruckus and swaying appeared in the movement of the van with some disgruntled yells coming from the front that now were nearly close to being decrypted into meaning.

"He d-didn't know, stop!" Nick tried to focus the attention upon himself but all that happened was the loss of warmth, as Tristan was grabbed by the neck and pulled in the air by the big mammal, feet hanging and throat gurgling in strangulation. "He's d-disoriented, y-you bastard scum!" Nick yelled hoarsely through squirms that dug the bindings into him, but there was no self included here, it was only the feverish desire to stop this filth before it became irreversible. Nick's jades gave well to tears on the corners at seeing Tristan's lessening efforts to break free with his tied legs. "H-he didn't know! He didn't k-know…"

But Tristan's breaths were lessening and the fighting was headed towards a final defeat that finally got Nick's eyes to release the pressure he was putting up defiance against, with this depressing sadness of the impeding undesired reality.

A loud whack, followed by another got the makeshift door to the front to burst open and parts of rust to scrape in random directions, while light poured in like an angel from the sky. That visibly got the big mammal to stop his death grip and look at the smaller trespasser who had surely ruined his sadistic fun.

"W'at's all t'is noi— t'e 'ell ya doin', mamm?!" the smaller mammal exclaimed, but appeared fully hesitant to enter as to try and wrestle for control, while one of his legs went to the other and brushed the cloths obscuring with his brown clawers.

"None es basiness, anorexic bitch," the bigger mammal pressed but Nick noticed him slipping his grip further out of _that_ realm's habitat…

Hope twinkled.

The smaller and masked mammal, whose body was thin and long, did have strangely delicately-appearing legs, while his ears were shaped like that of a fox, but he was way higher to be one, yet the face was obscured by that same balaclava of individuallessness.

"Tis now, 'e wants ya at 'er side. T'e steerin' seemed be absorbin' w'at 'e wants do to ya if ya keep t'is up," he disclosed with the addition of a scoff, and stepped inside defiantly with a paw close to his back, while the big mammal's posture lessened out of confidence, and after a long moment of heavy air, he threw the nearly-unconscious body of Tristan at Nick, who felt the bone of Tristan's shoulder dig into his arm with the absorption of force, while his partner's head hit the ground with a sickening crunch that brought maddening and concern everywhere within Nick, more importantly it was infinite concern overwhelming.

Nick wanted to ask if he was alright, if something was broken, especially his gentle neck. Scent of fresh blood came to Nick's nostrils and he assumed the worst, but then the big mammal threw a very nasty curse that got Nick to spot the bloodied paw of the sadistic piece of shit… Had he cut himself on the ruby? Huh, guess it wasn't that refined after all, the elegance turning into thorn against the avidity of those wrong and black.

The big mammal stampeded loudly towards the front and faked a head-butt just before exiting at the lean frame of mammal next to the door, to which Nick saw the smaller mammal's tail to electrify and claws to go at ready, but nothing happened and the door shut with a bang of a cannon, or grenade. Nick wanted to thank the mammal for stopping this but found it best just to keep his head down and confine into his trusted partner who needed his attention right now. After all, these mammals had kidnapped them, he needed a way out, and right now there seemed to be none.

Nick moved his body slowly so that Tristan could fully touch the cold floor and then adjusted himself so that his muzzle was underneath Tristan's bloodied head, where the tip of his mouth was reaching his partner's ear directly. The closeness and warmth managed to lower his heartbeat and need to pant, which was almost impossible in this sticky position of abysmal dread and concern. His blood was filled with nails in flames that gave pain to every turn they did within the tunnels of his veins.

" _They mustn't hear us. Speak low._ " To the request, Nick received a long and painful groan with a very hot breath that squirmed around the side of his creamy neck. "Okay, is your neck broken," Nick asked and Tristan slowly raised it and then just dropped onto Nick's muzzle that flared in discomfort from the angle of weight, but he gulped it down.

" _J-just… hurts… a-lot,_ " Tristan said through hasty breaths and groaned as quietly as possible again.

" _What about your head, how do—_ "

" _Like someone is kicking a ball inside it… two ba-ll- ughh…_ "

" _Okay, look at me… hey_ ," Nick begged over the lack of expression and eye contact Tristan was into, but then his ambers slowly rotated into sight and gazed primal horror into Nick's vision. He needed to comfort him, they had to be in control even when appearing to have fully lost it. " _We're going to get through this, just do as they say and don't anger them, 'kay… Keep that confidence, stay in control!_ "

" _B-but I'm s-scared, Nick…_ " Tristan whimpered and Nick's instincts bellowed at him to hug the broken tod closer to himself and feed him strength. But it wasn't working, he was incapable of doing the simplest thing… " _It's like t-those years all o-over again…_ " Nick's thoughts crumbled, as he understood easily what had been meant. It was a time where Tristan, like Nick himself, couldn't find his place in the world and didn't know who he was.

The only difference was that Tristan's heart was way purer than Nick's, and so the tod had lived in haunt every day, until Nick saw those faults and extended the paw of friendship that gave way to them both feeding off each other's vital energies excess. But such disgusting misery had to be endured for the end of those repressing thoughts, so much time… And now, now Tristan was going through it again, those same old emotions of broken repairs, which Nick could feel losing himself into like ice under the sun. Looking on it all, Zoe's office was as if the entrance fee to this… hell. Like that deal had been the illegal contract with the devil.

"Hey!" Nick slightly raised his voice with a skip of his heart, " _We'll get through, we always do._ " But his words didn't have the desired effect, Tristan was reeking of primeval consternation.

" _What if they s-sell us into s-slavery… what if t-they take turns o—_ "

" _It won't happen,_ " Nick hissed and at that moment the van hit something on the road and began creaking loudly as it bounced left and right on its suspensions. Where the hell were they being driven to?

" _Y-you don't know t-that, Ni—_ "

"I'll bite your throat off," Nick asserted coldly, which got Tristan's breath to cease flowing and shortly after the shock had passed, his thoughts came through as gibberish, to which Nick saw fit to explain himself, " _I'm going to try everything in my power to get us out of here, understand? It has to be a misunderstanding. You know they say that us foxes look alike? Not that it's true, but you get me,_ " Nick wanted to see Tristan's eyes and pulled out his muzzle from under Tristan's side, to which he saw less of the previous with some… devoted affection? Tristan's eyes were so teary, so bloodshot… so terrified. Nick despised seeing that, such unnecessary misery to a mammal so undeserving.

" _Nick… c-can you… say… you love me,_ " Tristan whispered with a disgruntled wince, as he whimpered form sure pain in his head. The request dazed Nick so much that he zoned out for several long moments of dust. Where had this just come from, didn't he already know, hadn't he shown him rather then told him? Nick saw that as unnecessary and just uncomfortably kissed the dry nose of his terrified friend, who moaned in discomfort and begged, " _Please…_ "

Was he thinking that they would die or that this was their last shared moment together? Such thoughts only furthered the stress and hurt, they needed strong minds to work upon this maze of errors. He could give him… hope. " _We get out of here and it will be the first thing I do, I promise,_ " Nick soothed and noticed the attempts of rebuke on Tristan's hesitant lips, but silence gave way to a moment of tenderness as both tods stood still and just mooned into one another from the darkness of their closeness and captivity.

"Darn nastied foxes," that familiar voice gave sound in the van, a voice Nick had forgotten about, a voice and words that got his nerves to flare, and his muzzle to wrinkle in ire at the mammal who was having a window into their intimacy, a mammal who had stopped the act of violence, but was altogether complicit in its execution. That got him to retch in hate, but the long-legged mammal saw that and closed the distance, skulking now between both of them, but staring deeply into Nick with his wicked ambers, which had some motes of empathy and large amounts of… malice.

"Truest master t'is world's mig't. Mig't makes rig't. Ya two pussy-creamed dicksuckers are just vermin be stepped upon. _Rodents!_ " The spite moved on Tristan who instantly flinched away but the clawy paw of the red mammal reached for Tristan's chin and raised it so he could see better. "But I see w'y. Strong features ya got t'ere, toddy," he cooed and Nick snapped his jaw with a growl at the predator above, who retaliated without concern with a fist over Nick's muzzle that got all his gums to rattle, while his brain was as if compressed into a sphere of agony that expanded quickly afterwards in signals everywhere.

His head swam in new dizziness that mingled all too well with the old one, yet his resolve pushed the physical as he sought to protect that what was dear, however the long-legged mammal had taken space away from them and the vehicle had come to a stop, with doors swinging shut on the sides at the front. "Guess we'll see," the mammal added in amusement and went to the back, where metal clanked, and shortly after, light poured into the darkness with the backdoors opening in sounds of rust and old.

Blindness overtook Nick's jades, and he groaned with the mix of discomfort present still. His paws tried to grind his sharpness into the rope, but he was tightly being kept immobile. Wait, he could use his head to chew off the rope on his legs. But then again, that'd earn him more searing issues around the ribs. The scent of grass and fresh air got his nose to twitch in between the trails of blood from Tristan, while the sound of birds moved his terrified eyes towards the light where he could faintly see a hill with scarce trees that resembled golden colors that meant the beginning of the end of a cycle that autumn had given way to.

There was something else, a rusted fence and what looked like… he couldn't be sure really, his vision wasn't able to adjust yet and time was an enemy, when the other door flew open, the big mammal came in the style of great haste that fueled Nick's consternation to new heights. He embraced himself for the worst imaginable scenario possible, while attaching his body like glue to Tristan's due to the instinct to protect.

But all that was taken forcefully away, when his tail was snatched and pulled towards the light with his flaring chin grinding into the uneven and slicey-uncovered flooring, while Tristan was handled around the head and dragged like a bag of trash ready to be disposed. Nick tried to yell from the abusive way his body was used like a mop, but his jaw wasn't opening and all that came were whimpers without escape. Squeezing spread across the inside of his skull and his stomach convulsed with his gag reflexes coming and going. The warmth of the setting sun touched his back and that was the moment he felt himself flying in the air with a blur that his vision couldn't clean, the blood of his body moving down his limbs from the sudden motion up.

Was he thrown from a canyon, a tall building, in a river!? Then contact became known to his thigh and all his weight crashed upon his leg, which got him to yelp miserably and curl into himself, while his ears caught the same whimpers some space between him. The air traced dust and grass, which got him to sneeze a pawful of the dirt airy. His lost breath was regained, and he shivered with a groan of the prior more, while his head shook from the impact. Then the ringing came and drilled into his drums that got his jaw to open and more sounds of despair to get out through his sounds of damage, as his paws tried to go over the painful sharpness.

Yet even when his senses were disabled, vibrations could be felt from the dry ground, as if a bigger mammal was walking by him and putting up some distance. He had to see the surroundings, to find a way out for both of them or this could turn ugly very fast, despite its already wretched paint. He opened his jades to the world and was met with the stinging dust that tried to falter his resolve, but this hateful determination and rapid heartbeat, infused by his adrenal glands, made him persevere against the odds of managing. He was looking directly at the fence that was in disrepair and grass and bushes, while behind it were what looked like constructs of granite, stone and degrading wood…

It was an old cemetery… A mausoleum with a dome could be seen in the heart of it but it appeared so old and unattended as well as obscured lots, with trees having infested many of the tombstones and tilted them in angles deemed in the past wrongly immoral and unacceptable. There was so much rosehip, which's branches were as thick as those of the overshadowing trees that some had entered the life of death, with their bare limbs and discolored bodies of bark being a reminder of the inevitable that was to come to all who were participants in the game of life itself.

The sky in the distance was being plagued by grey clouds that were slowly moving with the cold wind that gave an idea for rain to come, even if it was in the farness yet unseen and unpredictable. But then the ringing in his ears lowered and he managed to catch the awful sounds of his sweet partner above his head, where his vision was in a blind spot. It immediately got an instantaneous reaction of the need to protect, as his body tensed up and tried to worm up towards the now-visible sight of Tristan, whose muzzle was flat onto the naked ground, with teary eyes staring into nothingness. It lashed Nick's heart and his binds around his wrists dug in, as he tried to get free with all his remaining energy that had the pressure of a dented and compromised container.

He was getting close to the crushed state of his partner, but an immeasurable force pushed into his back and stopped his movement, while his spine cracked and got his head to move to the side as to open it and scream in hell. The discs around his back were as if on the verge of collapse, just needing a bit more to rupture and spill the contents of their lubricant, the clothing on his back was barely keeping the friction from reaching his skin. His silver tongue begged to be released and try to fix this what looked like to be the end of the road, as his eyes caught piles of trash close to the base of the hill, where more rosehips and thorns had collectively conquered the patches of soil.

 _No… it can't end like this._

"J-just let us expla— w-we can… resolve this!" Nick screamed at last with filling gurgles in his lungs, and a heart in his ears that boomed thunderously. The mammal who had pinned him down shifted their weight closer to his head and he felt coldness on the back of his temple with the scent of oil, while his eye saw the lean frame of a tall mammal with a spotted long tail, yet the face was obscured like all the rest. He couldn't even notice the color of the mammal's eyes, but it wasn't the same one with the long legs, this one had a less intrusive scent, yet how could he think about this when he had a gun pointed into the back of his head, the scent of death's oil was touching his red fur now riddled with dust and stress unclean.

The mouth of the beast began grinding into his skin and skull, which got him to curl his body closer to himself, with emotions going over the roof and fully intoxicating him into submission. He didn't want to die, he wanted to live! The only thoughts racing from his head were those of primeval and unchecked fear, all of those protective needs had vanished and crashed, all those plans of escape punctured and flattened to the dry soil of decay. But what had he done, what had they done!? Was it because they had tried to deviate from the path society wanted them to trail? What the fuck was wrong with that? What the fuck was wrong with these monsters!

Rage replaced the dread almost instantly, and he had this gobsmacking feeling and thirst for blood that became almost insatiable within seconds time, this wasn't survival that had overcome it, it was pristine hatred. But it all just crashed when his ears caught the whimpers and scent of distress of his dearest and closest friend, it pulled him out those pits of no return, which had tried to take over his mind and body. The pressure from his spine moved away and the intruding scent of oil began dissipating. Something moved in between his tied legs, and he felt coldness with continuous movement, yet there was no pain, there was this sensation of recovery below his ankles… was he being set free?

His head squirmed down and saw the same mammal with a bulky knife that was apparently cutting the bindings around him. The pressure slowly released and blood rushed down his cold ends, to which it prickled and slowly began changing into comfort of illusive freedom, despite the searing hotness. Where was this place exactly? There was this strange sound, like a river moving from behind the shadowy hill, while there was visible elevation on the side of the van, and it was going down with the view of hills and forests being a dominant factor around, apart from the graveyard that was at the base of the mentioned small hill. That coldness came to his arms and flinched his existence, but the same actions spoke and comfort entered his cells of his abused limbs.

Slowly, he moved them in front of him as he rolled on his back, coat having lost its color and now mingled with the protrusive shade of dust. The lean mammal with the long and spotted tail stared at him for several moments with the knife in its paw, until _her_ chilly words came to be, "On your knees," she ordered with a gesture of her knife and moved towards Tristan, whom Nick noticed hadn't even twitched from his spot. It made him to want and go get him up, but Nick was frozen with complicity. The stinging of his paws got him to rub his wrists, and he slowly propped himself up with groans of his internal struggle, all the while trying to ignore the thumps within his brain poor.

But he was taking his time and actually faking his crippling pain as that was a curtain to mask his attempts of finding escape. The road from where they had come had deep elderly ruts made from either torrential waters or heavy trucks, it was a miracle the van hadn't gotten stuck in them, or maybe it was excellent driving, yet the rusty machine looked so unkempt, like an antique found in a third world country, it didn't even have licensing plates… Were they going to burn it after this? His quick glance for reassurance that Tristan was fine, as fine as fine could be, got him to see the same actions being repeated on him, yet he was motionless and unresponsive. Nick finally adjusted himself to be on his knees that hurt from the weight of his body upon the solid earth, while his heart was begging at him to go there and speak words of comfort to his friend…

But that just was impossible.

The tall weeds, from behind which were the rumbling waters afar, appeared to be the best way for escape, even if they carried characteristics of the unknown altogether, yet there were just too many mammals watching them, one of whom had an assault rifle in their paws, while keeping watch down the road. At least that mammal was smaller than the one who had tortured them in the back of the van. Exactly that big mammal just threw, what looked like, an appropriately-sized shovel and pickaxe onto the grassy soil close to where the piles of odorless garbage lay. The rest were just minding their business and giving glances over Nick and Tristan as to be sure they were still there. All of them, obscured faces.

Nick's ear twitched and he saw the mammal with the knife pull Tristan by the back of his collar, which got Tristan to grab it in reflex and choke as he was pulled closer to Nick with harshness and uncare. Just when he was within reach, Nick shuffled closer and grabbed Tristan by the arm and around his back to support his coughing friend that just stank of the situation itself, it was flaring Nick's nostrils and further angering him, but that anger just couldn't be used, they were at the worst disadvantage possible and that shovel was raising Nick's hackles and heartbeat to newer unexplored heights. He couldn't remain silent anymore.

"I can explain, I'll tell you anything! Let's talk, please! Please let's just talk!" Nick begged in dourness as he followed the female's eyes that had squinted at him in trustlessness, while she played with the edge of her knife over her claws that scraped with this nerve-flinching noise. Nick moved his muzzle closer to Tristan and rubbed his cheek into his, as he whispered words of encouragement that everything was going to be fine, but Tristan wasn't reacting, he was frozen from shock and Nick knew that it all was up to him. He had to get them out of this, which he couldn't even understand to why it had happened. Had they wronged someone in the distant past that was just now coming out of the closet spidery?

The female stopped and her long tail moved behind her slowly, then she sheathed her fat knife and pulled out her pawgun that was an old revolver of grey frame and brown grip that was strange to see in this world where weaponry was way ahead of its time, with such relics of the past being only put in museums or sold cheap to mammals with lacking finances. She pushed open the cylinder that exposed the golden cartridges of the mortally led-infused death. It made Nick's lips to tremble and ears to fall with his body going closer to Tristan's ever still, they were at the mercy of these… freaks in costumes.

The burly mammal hit the rosehip with his shovel several times in attempts to make a way through the natural wall protecting the cemetery, while the female gestured with the revolver for the two foxes to follow, yet she didn't move and stood still in wait. Nick turned back and saw a mammal short half by them standing still with a rather oversized rifle in their paws, looking at them intently through misty brown. There was no way but that way apparently…

With a painful groan, he stood up with wobbly knees and helped Tristan do the same. Nick could fully see that his friend was still like he was, trembling and just staring into nothing. But they had to do as they were bid, otherwise more trouble would arrive in forms disliked. Thus he heaved the weight on his shoulder and they slowly passed by the spotted tail of the vigilant female, whose overall black appearance and gloved paws hid any individuality that could've been remembered… The only thing that could be linked to remembrance was that exact tail.

" _O't mah'way, bitches!_ " came the howl-like shout of that sadistic mammal, who now couldn't be seen at all, as the overgrowth of the graveyard had swallowed him whole, yet they slowly limped towards the path he had created. A glance behind them showed Nick that he was being followed by the tall female and short but dangerous mammal who sounded as if he was carrying equipment more than his own bodyweight.

Just before they were to enter the ruined wall of rosehip, he saw part of the steel wall in the earth itself, its spikes being the only thing remotely visible of it all as they protruded through the ground like the limbs of the dead themselves, surrounded by thorns and weeds, and the prior and current rot of autumn. The trees inside the haunted place were rather many, the branches were low and scattered everywhere around tombstones missing, fallen or still standing by some miracle of luck.

The smell was damp and had a very earthly touch to it, no doubt to the countless bodies rotten. Nick didn't want to enter this unfaithful and disregarded patch of place reserved only for death itself to be, he didn't want to die, not after achieving so damn much, after having been given a chance of new! His muzzle pointed to Tristan who was still phased out of the real world, which was best as such for now, he didn't need to think about it, there was no need to further the traumatizing effects of this situation.

Solid and cold dug into his back that pushed him to overstep the boundaries and start walking the irreversible path of damnation. He didn't even look behind him, what was the point, what else than those obscured mugs would be there? Salvation? Hope? Pft, the disbelief entered him more and he spat on the rich earth, immediately regretting it as the ground was uneven and was outlining a mammal's resting place, a big one at that. They were walking on the dead, rather ironical as soon they'd be the ones further refine the earth with their nutrient-efficient bodies.

Nick couldn't hold his sniffle and pulled Tristan to himself in needed of affection that soon would be disintegrated if something wasn't done about this insanity. There had to be something that could be done, yet all his attempts of silver oral, they had resulted in pain and failure, which either meant a sealed fate or something else…

His foot stumbled upon an exposed root and both of them fell over an angled tombstone that cracked under their combined weight, but instead of just doing that, it cracked even more and they fell with it into the sunken earth surrounded by stone borders fractured and dislocated. Bushes thorny dug into their clothes and Nick's fur was pulled against as it was gripped with firm and acute ends. He tried to quickly push himself back up, but his paws weren't reaching for the ground below as the bush's thick branches were supporting his weight against them. His feet were far back at the angle he was at, with the addition of broken skin on those hooked spots, thus he realized that he couldn't bring himself up, he just couldn't. He was stuck in this thornish prison that was trying to skin him alive and wear his pelt like a coat for the winter incoming.

Instead of resisting nature's pull towards the grave, he just stopped all motions and surrendered to the flow of wind. It was easier to just let it go, it was easier to just submit and stop fighting. Just like he had done in the past with his decisions derived from his environment and society, just like now. But the whimpers of his closest mammal brought him back to reality, whimpers that turned to a screech as his friend's presence was removed from his closeness. It got Nick to trash against the thorns, but he was soon given the sensation of his fur being attempted to be pulled out of his skin, unrooted in a way, when he was strictly expunged from the natural captivity, stumbling back and falling on his rump on the patch of leaves and roots and stones.

His paw reached for his cheeks and neck, where pain was sizzling hot, some creamy fur and parts of leaves remaining from where he had been cruelly abolished, but he couldn't continue forth as that same grip yanked on his shoulders and got him up on both legs, pushing him despicably forward. He bumped into another body that he grabbed onto and it appeared to be Tristan, who had hugged himself and was just being there.

Nick wanted to retaliate, do something, just… anything! But all fell on deafness as he just wrapped an arm around Tristan and followed the recently-made path by the big mammal who was cussing deeper into the overgrown graveyard. So much death around them, so much danger that tried to grip onto him, trip him, to catch him into its embrace. Most graves looked big and none appeared to be less so, as if they were meant for elephants of some sort, or who knew. The species weren't listed on the faded tombstones, only illegible names and years from the previous decades ancient.

The dimming light barely could enter through the crowns above, while unattended branches of death stuck out like cancerous limbs, twisted and forgotten… weak. Boles of old bark that had unhealthy textures and scars from struggles past, all were preparing for the coldness of winter that was to come, yet many had lost the struggle long ago, now being the skeletons above who represented those underneath.

They entered something like a clearing where the sky could be seen, with the elevation up the small hill being just ahead, and behind the sadistic mammal whose clothing had been torn in many spots, while the balaclava had lost its entirety on the side, yet not exposing enough for imprint but a brownish and skin-like appearance of that what hippos looked like usually. He was leaning on the sharp shovel, visibly tired from making a path for them to cross through, and no wonder. Still, this clearing wasn't made by him because it appeared rather, new but still not recent. And who in their right removed thick obstacles of wood-likeness with a simple shovel? Tho he did appear simple-minded and ridiculous, tho would they still allow him to act like a total buffoon?

But the most frightening and chilling part of it all was the headless stone statue that was overlooking the old graves that the bear was resting in front, a tall statue without clothes, just bones. The creature it resembled couldn't be identified, while one of its arms held a scythe of longness. Was this Death? But where were his robes and head… where was the blasted head, could it b-

"Now-now…" came the feminine voice from behind them, which got him to swish his neck at her and notice her spinning the revolver cylinder that was making a whirring sound of patient impatience. And then she just snapped it shut with a click and pointed it at the air as she got around and stopped just before the two foxes. "They wouldn't usually send ussssss, but it appears we've got it foxes this time. But by the Reaper, it's best entrusted us to handle these… problems," Nick saw the mask from around the muzzle and knew that she was grinning, yet remained perfectly obedient and just listened with his shivering mess of a friend next to him.

"You see, Nick Wilde, you're a famous nuisance," she stated and leaned closer, while Nick's mind was going over everything possible he may've have done wrong during his life, so to just understand what was the damn problem. In a way he wanted to accept the reality that this could've been a compliment to his good deeds… "Selling, whatever you get your paws on with this…" she lost her wording as her eyes began drooling over Tristan who still was zoned out, "this fine specimen of, sexy fox. Look at you… You all look the same to me. But you… you're something else, darling," she cooed and put her paw under Tristan's long muzzle, where she twisted gently as her eyes went over him in a disgusting hunger that was infesting Nick with an incandescent glow of malice. Her paw then hesitantly moved away and was to reach his ruby on the collar when shouting came from near the beheaded statue.

" _Get workin', anorexic bitch!_ "

" _I'm none's bitc' ya prey cunt, eat ya own shait, stump-dicked sister-fucker!"_ It was the big mammal wielding the oversized pickaxe and reaching with it towards the mammal with the tall legs, who had a battle stance and a twitchy finger on holster. The female before Nick had turned around so that her eyes weren't looking at him, and Nick saw that as perfect opportunity to run, yet when he turned around, the short mammal with the sophisticated assault rifle met his eyes in the non-spoken words _No_. Still, he wasn't going to miss a chance of setting up a quick plan of action, as he could see a trail leading at a direction following the base of the hill, a trail that was within sprinting reach on the side, obscured a bit with thorns and branches long, obscured by the usual natural walls of this ceilingless city.

" _The hill, right, tell you when,_ " Nick whispered and squeezed Tristan on the ribs, forgetting the bruises and getting the dark-red tod to wince with a tight-lip grunt, yet that was enough for Tristan to move his ambers and Nick and stay there for a moment or so, until an unconfident nod came to be, and he returned to his previous detachment hopeless. The revolver's tongue cocked as it pointed at him, yet she was still looking at the two bickering mammals of male stupidity.

"Get digging, muncher!" she yelled with hoarseness, and the big mammal suddenly took a step back and readjusted his head towards her.

"Es can do it themself, wh—"

"Those big arms need some exercise," she interjected, to which the big mammal growled and swung the pickaxe into the headless statue, where the thin-legged predator stood close, rattling its structure and making pieces fall from the outer layers, yet the scythe wasn't swung for the beheading of such blasphemy and hostility, thus the hippo made another swing of sweltering grunts and punctured deep the dry earth with a loud thud that resonated underneath Nick's knees and got him to shiver. What were they going to dig up? Why was it being done inside the old earth now-defiled?

Her head moved back at Tristan but, as she inhaled, her eyes darted at Nick's and she refocused her attention on him. "Never liked these places," she began and pointed her revolver at the beheaded statue of bones, "and this stench is getting on my nerves. Ugh, this is suffocating me!" she groaned and pulled the mask off her face, which gave view to very attractive vise of golden fur with black spots and black streaks of tears that moved from the corner of her eyes to the base of her pink nose.

She was a cheetah and a rather gorgeous one at that, yet all of that was stifled with the threat of death looming above. " _What're, Ha— you know we can't do that,_ " yelled the smaller petrified mammal from behind them in a voice that was a bit to the squeaky side of notes.

"Can't breathe in this filth," she snapped and waved a dismissive paw at the troubled mammal who was shuffling with the rifle in their paws, "and who cares anyways," she smirked as her revolver pointed at the hole that the big mammal was crazily digging up with increasing rage after every blow. No answer or retaliation came and Nick tried his best to memorize the face of this mammal, he had to do it. "What was I to saaay? Ahh, yes. Your activities have been duly noted. It got us wonder how and who," she continued on the point and made a circling motion with her claw, "but the most important of all is… who're you working for," she demanded with amusement draining and turning into a deadly glare that moved from Nick and Tristan.

Who they were working for? Was she fucking insane? They were working for themselves, always had been doing so and had never made deals to answer to anybody, as their activities hadn't been that big of impact. How could he answer in such a way as to eradicate the suspicion present in the feline's mind, how could a fox be believed of telling the truth as she had put in between, was this an answer without a right answer? But what if someone else was going behind their backs… Todtrot? What if he had made a bad choice that had led to this situation. If so, he had to be here and not them!

"Nobody, and it has never been a problem. We don't handle the reserved street stuff, we're even going away from all that, we are!" Nick tried with as much confidence mustered, and she was actually contemplating upon his answer until her shoulders brushed the insides of her clothes and her paw shot for Tristan's throat, who instantly grabbed onto her arm and began choking and growling futilely.

"Wrong answer," she decided without any humour and squeezed into Tristan's throat, whose yelps and whimpers turned into a chokeful of air that was losing sound, while his clawless fingers were digging into the arm of the stronger cheetah.

"It's the truth! We've never crossed anyone-everything was dealt with resale of normal goods. Nobody was above us, it was damn freelance!" Nick yelled and tried to grab her arm, but she pointed her revolver and he hit the deadly mouth with his forehead in recoil back that got him to fall on his ass harshly in respective reaction. He didn't receive the kiss of death but managed to receive crippling indecisiveness from the complete confidence breakdown.

"We made a deal with a CEO of Straits! But it's legitimate, it has nothing to do with this!" he blurted out and the cheetah ceased further digging her claws into Tristan's neck, and just like that she released him and Nick shot for his partner, angling his body so that it'd act as a barrier against the vile sorry-excuse for a predator before them.

"See? The truth will set you free! You know what happens to those who are caught telling lies, don't you?" she asked and tried to move around the coughing Tristan, but Nick covered him fully with his own body underneath and glared at her through deep hatred. "Those who transgress into sin and caught thou shall not be allowed to leave thy wretched world. They'd answer to time and experience thy torturous agonies of mortality in death. Those whose devotion is unwavering will be given my gift, they will be thy messengers, they will know true peace!" she finished with great excitement and gesturing just before stopping in front the two tods. "I got that right, didn't I?" she looked over at the smaller mammal behind the two foxes, who was holding a paw over his face.

"Just… don't let 'im hear you talk about those fanatics," the mammal brooded through great irritation, but the cheetah smiled and mockingly waved.

"Purely educational tradition. Now…" she smoothed out her tail and began pacing in a circle, while giving them side glances with every loop, "You've been running this for a long time, it h—"

"It hasn't even bee-" he screeched in dissonance at the accusations of lackless foundations, but she stopped instantly and the hammer of the old revolver clicked into his direction, which got him to stop thinking of other retaliations and keep closer to Tristan.

"One more time…" she growled and glared as to get her message to sink in deep within Nick's skin. And that it did. "You've been generating profits on grounds that do not belong to you. You've defied any attempts of contacting our proxies for accounting and permission. And you've tried expanding your business again with the same accusations from the same as before. You've lied to us and have the nerve to interrupt _me_ …"

" _Nick… w-we're g-going to d-d-die…_ " Tristan whispered from below and the traces of the words managed to go to Nick's ears, to which, even if the accusations meant surely that, he moved back and put a gentle kiss on his cheek after. Then he rubbed his fur in Tristan's and _shssshed_ comforting to his teary friend, which held the whimpers and crippling angst at bay.

"Such a shame, you're even repulsing specimens of filth and devilry. Usually you'd be castrated from where we come from, foul wretches!" she spat and nearly hit Nick over the head, but she stopped herself as if she had realized something, which resulted in a cough and slow steps away. "But… I can't exercise those rules here for those dwellers, as His gift hasn't been spread still. No, today only one thing will happen by our will," she declared and looked over at the big mammal that was audibly panting louder than an engine, he was in the hole nearly half with his body and she groaned loudly with ire, "Are you digging that for yourself, you damn braindamaged idiot?" she jeered and the big mammal stopped midair with the dirt-hugged pickaxe.

"Wait! Stand still!" were her short words of excitement that were in line with a gasp behind the two foxes.

She turned around so fast that her tail had been in front of her when she had successfully pulled the motion, the revolver looked at the big mammal and she aimed, and then it's mouth exploded with friction and gunpowder, the bullet didn't visibly hit anything, yet the thin-legged mammal moved behind the beheaded statue, while the big mammal slightly ducked miserably in the trench-grave, and yelled from the top of his lungs, "Fack's es deal, whore!"

"Whore?!" she angrily repeated, then another shot went out and hit the space just before the grave-trench. The big mammal seemed to have had enough and climbed up surprisingly-agilely, but then she shot once more and this time there was contact, she hit the pickaxe which fell off the big mammal's paw in the audible note of pain.

"The he-, stop it, Hana," the smaller mammal ran to her and pulled on her arm to which the next bullet flew somewhere randomly and got her to growl in great irritation at the disruption. Nick saw that as their chance, this was the moment for them to run as a conflict had arisen, and all eyes were away from them. The big mammal shouted more obscenity and threw the nearby shovel at their direction, to which Nick whispered _run_ in Tristan's ear and they took off with a laborious sprint towards the path on the side, but it wasn't a good attempt due to both their legs being dragged. Nick felt so weak and unresponsive from the beating and lack of enough-blood to his limbs, he knew Tristan was in the same space of problems.

" _I rip es facking spine, bitch!_ " The shovel that was thrown landed behind them and dragged against the earth in dustiness that blew a cloud around the space overlooked by the beheaded ancient beings of stone.

" _Scale, stand down right now!_ " the high-pitched voice of the smaller mammal cut the air with several suppressed shots that were surely coming out from the assault rifle in a very strange form, as if they were slicing the air in half, yet they were going towards the other direction, it wasn't at them and that fueled Nick's resolve to hurry up, to get his precious friend away from this madness, this graveyard of end. If they could just get to the top of the hill, they'd be able to easily navigate to safety, especially if there was a river that could wash the scent off their bones, so that those predators in the party of killers wouldn't be able to trace. Loud crackles infested the background with rays of bright light behind the thorny walls.

" _They tailin'it, mamms!_ " Came the deep shout that was a property of the lanky mammal, but the light that faded quickly got mild curiosity than anything else, yet nothing could be seen no more, only this vibration of a mini-earthquake that gave, noting that something heavy had fallen down, which wasn't well observed due to the thorny wall of sharpness itself, thus he heaved more energy into Tristan and pulled as the clambered up the roots and twigs and obscurity, but the pain wasn't stopping him, the blood and tatters of coat and pants that flew from the needles of the vegetation wasn't stopping him, all that mattered that he was to get both of them out of here, and if he was to take all this pain for them to have a chance, then so be it.

Something made his foot sear, but his mind was distracted, when he felt something else grip onto him and warmth to get closer, it made his eyes to struggle keeping composure as he pressed into the unknown, while the sounds of yells and steps appeared to be getting closer-still.

They defiled many graves by going through them, Nick even hit his pelvis in a gravestone that got him to nearly fall to his knees as the disability spread through his whole bone like an arrow of poison, his saliva was falling from the sides of his mouth as he needed all breath he could pull in, thus didn't have any time to gulp it. All on top that he had to pull the semi-helpful weight of his closest mammal…

Thoughts flashed through his head that he could escape if he just let go, if he just tried to save himself…

There, another clearing was seen through this vulnerable part of wall-rosehip. But this one had chest and box tombs fully overgrown by nature, its religious markings lost underneath. Nick pushed through the painful wall, sacrificing his own selfishness so that Tristan wouldn't suffer the full onslaught, and they both got through, now stepping on more gentle grass than needles sharp. Nick's coat was ruined, his pants showed the orange of his fur, blood slowly oozing from his unprotected spots of body, while Tristan appeared to be in a better state, due to Nick's sacrifice. They hurried around the richer part of the abandoned overground necropolis. Nick searched for a path elsewhere but remembered that the hunting party had keen noses that were going to track them down in this dry weather. They had to do something radical and quick, while hoping that the rainy clouds would come soon and wash away the traces of male fox…

The mausoleum, made from old stone and a roof degenerated, now a husk of wood and tiles broken with a hole protruding into it and inside the remnants of those given fancy comfort in death to par. But no visible light shone there as two big walnut trees had grown large and skulking, leaves of their growth scattered like blankets around the place and giving the vibes of impending doom within the air itself. There was a big hornet's nest on the side of the overgrowth that hung like curtain figs from the mausoleum, the sounds of loud buzzing twitching into Nick's ear and attention, but he wasn't phased even one bit by that as the guns behind them held more weight to those of stings.

They stopped exactly at the old rusted doors, and Nick felt Tristan tugging on the remnants of his sleeve, tugs that felt desperate to what his mind was thinking of them doing, but what other choice did they have but this? The hackles on his neck rose when wind blew from inside, the stale, incense and soot soaked, old wax and damp air filling his nostrils, which caught more to the tints of old itself, tints of decay, tints of those forgotten. He wasn't one for superstition, but the prospect of doing this was making his own bones to shiver in trepidation, despite all.

The choice was made, he pushed the tall door, immediately receiving a very weak _no_ from Tristan that made his breath to choke within his throat, but they entered the darkness and closed the door behind them with an echoing crank, thus both noses of the males were assaulted by an even more concentrated filth of odor. Trusting in both his and Tristan's nocturnal capabilities, he quickly sought the most unique hiding place within this awful space of cessation. At first not much could be seen, but then his eyes adjusted to the surroundings that consisted of rock-still. But it wasn't a serene texture, there were these enclosed loculi with plaques filled with names, dates and circular pictures of those resting within, yet there was something missing on all of them, something that had no time present for the two foxes to gnaw upon as to why.

But many of these prior-obscured loculi, now broken and unsealed, had the broken masonry urns of those dead turned to ash in this discolored greyish and white texture, mingled with the elements of the place. Some even had bones and more urns pushed further in. It appeared that the glue that was meant to keep the seals had faded with time, thus letting the souls of the dead a touch of fresh air, if one could categorize an air of this filth fresh at all.

There was this feeling awful about the place, about the musty stench of dust, incense and mold, about the death everywhere around them that lay abandoned and totally forgotten. He heard a loud clank on the side of Tristan, which got his heart to shrink in a black sphere, due to the superstitious behavior this lost mausoleum was enforcing on both of them. He pulled his friend closer to him and embraced him fully, while trying to spot the perpetrator who had failed to stealthily move. There were cracks everywhere into the resting places of those withered and more special of wealth, the obscurers giving way to the shadows inside, but Nick forced his eyes down and saw an empty old bottle at an angle, its disturbance apparently having been forced by Tristan's foot.

Realization got him to sigh into the needed scent of his partner, while his arms pulled closer the craved body that exhaled at the force, but hugged back nearly instantly with the same avarice understandable. All the bitterness poured out of him for some lovely moments within this closeness with the mammal he had known a big part of his life, but some familiar discomfort underneath his foot got him to grimace, bringing his mind back to the matter at paw: To find a place to survive.

He moved back and plunged his gaze into the haunt of Tristan, who was fully confused and lacked any acumen whatsoever. "W-we'll make it, bro." Nick's paw cupped the dirtied cheek of his partner, who was hesitant to react, until his bleakness maroon gave in to the affection, as he pushed his cheek into the gesture of mammality.

Nick spat at himself within his mind for having to end this moment, but they didn't really have much time, distant headhunting yells could be heard outside and through the hole in the roof, where blackened wood stood by the supports of stone, it did look like a fire had previously burned there. A lightning strike? The stone around the ceiling was shaped into paws and hoofs of different sizes that all pointed up, it made Nick's itch underneath his foot even worse, and so he tapped Tristan on the shoulder, quickly removing himself from him and whispering to be followed, as he sought for a spot where their scents would be minimal, while their bodies drenched surreptitious.

A staircase! His feet bustled him to its base, where his nocturnals scrutinized that the spiral staircase itself was made of wooden frame and steel steps, moving down into the earth. He felt Tristan stopping beside him, and his mind was beginning him not to go down there. His tail was groped full and taken into the assurance of the haunted tod, and Nick was going to try and find something else, when something loud crashed outside too close to comfort.

He grabbed Tristan's paw and pulled down the wide treads creaky and rugged, trying his best not to slip on the damp surface that was full of vegetation overgrown, alive and dead the same, cobwebs ancient sticking into his fur like glue. The walls around them now were no-more of stacked rocks but ones full and whole, it was bedrock. But the dark-red tod wasn't so willingly following because he was actually putting up a fight to this decision that Nick's head saw as a smart one in this current state of mental lackness. Soot became more dominant in the auras of spices the inhabitance was offering freely.

The darkness was getting unbearable, the dread from the unknown, worse than having a gun pointed towards his head. It was so simpler with what you could see, there were no grotesque imagery within the head, spawned from the unknown and thus: fearful. It kept you on edge to expect something you couldn't expect due to not knowing what to expect in the first places of all. His guts were being stretched to the near point of wretched horror, the staleness and humid disgust brushed his fur and infested his body with its essence of ritualistic ingredients. The darkness devoured their bodies inside its belly: There, only uncertainties and possible danger or something worse but never explored to be known existing.

Nick tried to paw for his phone, but it wasn't where it was supposed to be, neither his wallet with his belongings. His mind extinguished the possibility of asking his partner to search for his, as the odds were miniscule for such to be found. The ground became sharp and uncomfortable, especially for his foot that stung more than the other with each step. The air was full of chill, it lacked any invitation present for the intruders upon this haunted dungeon forbidden, while his mind couldn't even wonder what exactly they were entering. All that mattered was for them to hide, even if they had entered the house of the dead. They were above them, they were protecting them… But what if they were still here, what if they saw ill to these uninvited guests that had so rudely entered through?

That thought, considering the blank void in front his eyes and awful sense of buzzing squeeze of hearts around him and his friend, it made Nick to grip his teeth in wobbly spite and to move to the side, where his paw managed to touch upon the surface of something very gritty and dusty. His other paw was holding dearly to Tristan, because the last thing he needed was to lose his precious partner amidst a maze of darkness and mingling scents filthy, his precious buddy. The flash of thought made him squeeze harder to an extent that made Tristan to groan lightly under his breath, yet no complaining came to be, while more webs entered Nick's eyes, thus he had to close them as they didn't have a function anyway. Tho knowing that the creatures had made them here, what if these spiders were big, hefty and with pincers many? What if they were already everywhere in their fur, laying their eggs for the harvest of blood that was to be done?

Nick felt ticking around his back and the sensation that something was crawling around it, thus reaching with his claws and feverishly scratching himself as if trying to kill whatever had been furrowing there, if there was anything at all amidst this chaos of beliefs. A loud sound of rocks being thrown forward made Nick's tail to jolt and his muzzle to contort in pathetic growls, but then Tristan whispered excuses about him tripping, while pushing his body close to Nick's in need. Nick's heart was not thumping, it was like a thunderstorm, it was making him deaf as he just wanted to stop and rid himself off his clothes that his mind was telling him were infested. They couldn't see anything! How would they even get the hell out of here.

Okay, he could remember his steps, but if they continued moving into the chamber of secrets, or was it a tunnel… whatever it was, if they got lost, the murderous gang of filth above would be the least of their worries. They needed to find refuge quick, refuge that wouldn't be their slow and certain downfall.

His mind wondered where they may be and why the graveyard was so abandoned, with such hostile vegetation having overtaken it, such an old, but pompous mausoleum left to be rotten and burned by the wrath of nature, it didn't sit right with him, those paws and hoofs around the ceiling… they were making him feel as if somebody was touching him with every step dared, as if the bones of the damned were trying to taste life, his life, one more time.

That surely increased the pace, until his paw touched an edge, a hole of height within the dislikable wall, their only guide within the nothingness. Moving to the side as he touched the extent of this unknown crevice, his foot hit something that clanked metallically in echo all around, to which his mind was bellowing at him that they had now awakened those sleeping here, his mind was trying to force a fake reality on him, and he wasn't able to control his emotions.

Climbing into the unexplored crevice, he felt more of the same awful surface with the concentrated aroma of incense, but that didn't stop him from pulling his friend up and trying to follow the wall within. Something hard came in contact with Nick's foot and clattered in sounds of shards and the feeling as if dust was everywhere around his foot, probably something from ceramic or who knows what. It didn't matter as they were soon met with an obstacle that stopped them yet again, its feel was one of cloth and hardness. The smell, it was actually going to manage to keep them hidden due to its intensity of staleness and the others combined.

There was no way around it, at least he couldn't feel one. They had to follow it to wherever it'd lead them blind, hopefully not a well or a grave… That'd be ironical if it did happen. So much dust got entwined in his fur and webs unfriendly, his bruises had begun flaring now, and his leg was starting to make his expression flinch. Yet, all was wasted to the breeze of death outside, the gust of demise whispering in chants everywhere where.

 _Aha_ , a path that was letting them proceed at their previous course, tho his next steps had even worse footing as it was sharper with the hollow sounds crunching underneath. It wasn't just fueling and spewing anxiety, it was daring it to worsen, to climb ten more steps. Where were they, what the hell was this thing out of cloth and sturdiness?! Again a damn barrier, it felt strange again, yet Nick let it guide them to the side yet again, as he was willing to trust touch and safety by shadows than to let the certain happen to him or his precious partner. Tristan grunted on several occasions as his body collided with something, which was making Nick wary with every new articulated sound, his ears feeling exhaustion from flicking around like in futile pings, guiding them blindly like a sonarless submarine to the depths of the deepest ocean.

His wrist bended harshly in front, but the pain was just not more than the one he was already in. He stopped and received a disoriented fox into his back, who pushed him into the obstacle in front of them. That obstacle felt like spears trying to puncture his chest and stomach, which immediately got him to withdraw to safety with his confused-same partner.

"W-where a-are…" Tristan mumbled into the deafnesss, which sounded so loud, so intimidating to the dangers of having their safety exposed to the hunters… Nick's paws touched the space around them and his mind mapped the conclusion that they were out of sight of the main entrance they had come from. This was safe, whatever the hell it was, despite the smells that were making him want to sneeze, at least for now. The flooring was sturdy, yet the clothing was making it rather cushier than what had been prior. He moved to the barrier obscuring them from visibility, at least that was what his mind was telling him, and he sat slowly into the uneven-clothed seating. He expected Tristan to take some time before coming down, but the young tod took no hesitation in the decision of Nick, quickly taking the spot next to him and pushing his muzzle under Nick's own.

The tar around his vision, the cold and smell of old soot was close to strangulation, terrifying… But all of that was being compensated by the breathing body next to him, from which Nick was drawing his courage not to break up in terrible shivers of anxious derailment. It was there in small motes invisible through the mask of sightlessness, but his mind was full of all the scenarios that led them to this desperate point. Questions with no answers, pain derived from evil and lack of reasons but that of selfishness. Still, still… he wasn't alone in this new wretched all-time low that the world had delivered, he was sharing it with his closest of mammals… the burden was not that heavy anymore as the comfort of the possible safety began spreading into the furthest edges of his exhausted body.

" _Still better than getting chased by those sisters, eh?_ " Nick joked with a tone comparable to that of a soothing breeze that was surely lost to the small radius of surroundings, it was acceptable to the safety of their shriveled tails. But he didn't get any other response, just Tristan burrowing himself further into the creamy neck with his paw finding its was underneath the coat and around Nick's side of ribs. His mind took it as confirmation as well as understanding as he could only try to imagine what was going through the head of his partner, the catastrophe they were in wasn't something he had experienced either and he was still able to keep the mental composure from leaking through his troubled skull and all around the elements. Not wanting to show the weakness, his instinctive way of hiding that came to be with the bodily reaction of his tongue feeling that silver itch, but he removed the threads of webs from before his mouth first when his tongue tasted bitterness.

" _Sure, we weren't dragged into a cemetery then, but they were so mad… I really believed they were going to skin us alive if they had caught us, huh… Good thing the place was local, unlike this jungle of graves and damn thorns,_ " he huffed out with some sour changes of pitch, and reached his paw behind Tristan's ear, where he began gently ruffling and removing any surely-grey stickiness that he caught. That got a reaction of a dissatisfactory groan at first that got Nick to withdraw, but then Tristan mumbled a reassurance, which got Nick to resume the pampering-intimate way of bringing an aura of comfortableness around them.

And then, his eyes were widened. " _That's what you get for trying to con vixens into buying you drinks and let them down. But I prefer that to…_ ' _this'_ ," Tristan gloomed and sighed longingly.

" _Eh, it was more than the drinks, you're trying to make me look good. But yea, I figure it is…_ " Nick agreed and sighed himself, while his ears listened in for anything out of place within this underground of possible nasty surprises. Maybe this was going to work, it ought to bloody work, they were innocent to these repercussions undeserved! The good part came when his mind was pulled back to a segment that was different to the degenerative one his brain was currently roaming amidst the silence of dislike.

" _Remember Downtown? You asked me to come with you… check some shops you said then,_ " Tristan asked very lightly so that if the place had been just slightly noisier, Nick wouldn't have even registered that anything had been said at all.

" _Iiiii guess?_ " He couldn't actually remember, but he drew it out as if he was giving Tristan the motivation to continue the trip down memory lane, they both needed as many of such until they'd get the chance to flee this forsaken hole.

" _It was something about sweets, size differences and… opportunities?_ " The choice of words tho gave a tick into his head, and thus into his memory of what was being talked about, it was an idea he had been tinkering upon when he had realized that differences in mammal size meant difference in food, equipment, clothes… It had been an awesome idea and his numbers leered to profit, but it wasn't a sum his mind was content with.

"Oh, of course I do! We nearly got thrown in the slammer. I knew then that we shouldn't go there with Happytown _rugs._ What about it, Trist?" Nick asked a bit louder than a whisper due to his actual excitement, which gave echo to the audible vast networks of tunnels. He took note to not do that again.

" _I… that was the s-scariest thing you got me into, N… Just the idea of going into the richest part of the city, I couldn't sleep that night before. Ughm, we just w-weren't meant to go there, we had to know our place, in the salt and d-dirt of Hap._ " Nick was shocked to hear this, his expression hidden by the blankets of black, was Tristan going against his own beliefs at this very moment?

" _Hold it, you still think that we should've stayed poor and dirt-stained foxes? After all you told me of how much more we could be?_ " There was a new sensation, a new breed of pain that thumped alongside the rest that his heart was harboring, yet this one could be so easily differentiated, as if his worst fear had come true, as if this was the nightmare of nightmares.

"Look where we are! We were kidnapped and will die, they'll find us, they'll find-us-I-know…"

" _Shhhhhh, shut it, dummy… You've venting, we'll get out of this, we'll manage like we always have. I promise to you, swe-_ " he nearly slipped out but bit his tongue, as he had never used that exact nickname with _him_. It was like he wanted to do it, his whole body wanted to do it, but his mind blocked at the prospect of the possibility. And that infuriated him, which got him to hug his dearest even closer, adjusting on the coldness below so that it wasn't digging that ruggedly into his rump.

His nose moved into the fur of Tristan, and he replaced the crummy odors of the elements with that of the enticing male musk that he had known for such a long time, it got his mind to feel at ease, it got him to momentarily forget where they were at and what was coming for them. In a way it brought him back to, plainly said, the best memories that his life could hold in the ardor vault of past. With the recent ones still, it was stronger than ever in the mingle of that awful consternation, as it made him value what was still whole even more so.

" _You can see this as when we were locked in that locker the whole night. Seems ideal, no?_ " That actually made the dark-red tod giggle childishly.

" _When you tricked those bullies and got me involved?_ "

" _Ughhh, yea… It's not like I wanted tooo, it just happened! I know we weren't keen on staying glued together in that small space back then… but thinking about it now, I don't see it the same anymore, 'sweetheart',_ " he got it out finally and it was the most relaxing feeling he got out of it in contrast to the whole day, even when they had managed to get the deal forward. It was like the lake had been cleaned thoroughly from congestion, letting the water to flow freely and clearly without any festering present. A way of unconventional serenity in a god-forsaken place.

It didn't take much for Tristan to shuffle underneath and move his muzzle into Nick's throat where he licked and nipped sweetly to the relief of Nick, who moved his head up in acceptance to the predatory behavior of affection, despite his unwant of direct scent ingestion. There was never a wrong time and a wrong place for love, there was never enough of it, there was always need and want for that precious and exulted emotion that made everything right in the beginning and end. His collar began drifting into fire and other urges tried to resurface, but the pain around his ribs that came, when Tristan squeezed his paw, got his libido to spike down and his partner to stop what he was doing to the uncomfortable hiss of unhealthy fox.

" _Sorry- you've never… like, well-_ "

" _Don't overthink it, you know you mean a lot to me, Tris. Just hang on, we'll be home at no time. We can even thank the landlord for not being a piece of shit these past weeks, eh?_ "

"I guess…" Tristan relented and his tired muscles cramped fell upon Nick's body in the final quadrants of giving up upon the unnecessary rows of overthinking, stress fleeing like snow to heat. Both foxes readjusted themselves once more into even more closeness thought impossible, and just stood there in the abyssal darkness and filthy air stagnant.

Nothing was certain anymore, Nick had seen the preciousness of time, he had seen how something could be taken away from him in the span of a heartbeat. Of course he knew that from experience of his past, but his childhood memories were faded and cracked into forced forgetfulness, this was fresh and had not just infected his mind, it had made him self-aware of how lucky he was.

All they had to do was to…

Live.

* * *

The spectrum of ends is a fixation without the way of possibilities to choice, alas one is told to shy not and embrace for the time visible of timeful appropriation disliked or otherwise. With religion death was painted as a passing to another world, a better world. This passing was seen as right and the final step to the actual beginning of eternal life, while the process of living would be categorized as a test for the soul if it should be banished to those corrupted, or accepted to those pure. But can't the prejudiced separation be seen so easily, can't the fallacy of the simple-minded past be decrypted and exposed? To those with a crystal mind it was, thus was why religion failed on itself in the long run. Now, it would act as a remnant of the abandoned, an archeological living exhibit accessible to all who'd wish to touch those holy sites and people. What they will come heads to tho is nothing but fiction and a system anachronistic. With the understanding of how all this used to be used for manipulation, one cannot run away from the feeling of ire at such awfulness. Yet such manipulation was underwent to unite people, it was required back when science was just a pile of canine shit.

When faced dead-on with the consequences of your actions, one either fully accepts or tries to flee from them as best as possible to the capabilities present that are on the tray of choices. Of course one would rattle the constricting cage around them due to the evident concluding moments of end to come, but they'd still know that it was their actions that led them to this very moment of payment dissent. How could they not, they were to blame for all that had transpired, so now they had to eat their pap of wrong choices.

But when faced dead-on with the consequences of somebody else's actions, this was an entirely other ordeal of hateful spite that was just unacceptable to the mind and body that craved to hear justice in the name of fairness and innocence, despite that same innocence not being full and crystal. Still, it was erroneous to be held accountable to such, like back in time when mob mentality would blame those who were painted or seen as guilty, despite the lack of evidence so forth. It never amounted to true justice as the thief would urge for the thief to be caught in the obscurity of proof… Such mentality, it wasn't evil, it was… stupidity. Exuberant and nefarious retardism of those with the worst odds of reproduction.

A distant echo crackled the eerie silence of wind in the dark unknown place, it managed to jolt Nick's eyes open and hot-wired his heart to try and wake his limbs up for action, which was attempted but met failure to the weight that was on his chest. A whimper made it out his mouth as the pain around his ribs and head reappeared in cloggy throbs that managed to pierce through the shell of bone and within. The weight on him moved a bit and readjusted warmly. Nick remembered who that was and where they were, had he dozed off? It looked as such and he craved to know if Tristan was doing alright, but decided against talking. His paw reached for the slowly breathing tod and he slowly scratched the fur of his partner with an exhale of distress to the festered pond they had been forced into.

Peculiarly, his right foot felt rather cold, thus he moved it closer to himself in an attempt to share in his own warmth and that of his sweet fox companion in everything, apparently. The support behind him was still that rough and grindy surface just like that below, and his curiosity finally kicked in to where the hell they were located in? But his eyes held nothing but that annoying nothingness, that scary blindness.

Another echo pierced the distance with a clanking rhythm and some kind of chatter in the distance somewhere. It made him to instantly flinch and nearly stand up when he realized what that could be, who that could be… Maybe it was the big psychopath who nearly crushed them to death? Or it was that unapologetic bitch who didn't value friend or foe. Whatever it were to be, it made Nick start shivering and whisper to Tristan to wake up, to which the young tod groaned too loudly to Nick's comfort. For that, he couldn't do anything else but to clamp his paws over Tristan's muzzle hard, which got the long-muzzled tod to whimper and push against Nick weakly.

" _Calm down, quiet-quiet!_ " he tried to sooth his friend, who thrashed and pushed against Nick's ribs, to which the receptors in his brain just ruptured in signals that took his breath away and got him to drop the grip over his panicked and confused partner. " _Tris! Stop…_ " Nick hissed and tried to catch his friend who was scurrying away with this awful sounds of desperation full. The uneven surface and weakness in his legs made Nick trip and fall on his elbows, while his nostrils sweltered with the smell of those awful incenses as well as tickling dust, to which he nearly sneezed but squeezed his muzzle locked over the trepidation that they'd be heard, found, liquidated.

" _T'is's shait, we been at tis all fuckin' day, wanna go eat already damn-it!_ " a yell originated closer from afar, while metal steps added to the ambience of danger. Nick knew that the mammal was climbing those spiral stairs and they were sooner or later going to get down to where they were, they needed to be quiet and hide, hide… hide! Instead of using his touch to find Tristan and coo him to calm, he used his nose that got him to nearly sneeze again because of the dust that was hooked at the entrance, a practical issue he fixed with a loud exhale of mucus that got stuck on his frontal lip.

The scent of trouble was caught and he slowly followed to the source in the mingle of those disliked, while being as quiet as death itself with his soft paws used for stalking prey. " _W'y 'e care so muc' about t'ose low-life scum-shaits. T'ey be dead already for all I care, fell in a 'ole or w'ocares. And now we goin' round t'ese dingy-ass graves?!_ "

Nick bumped his wrist into something very solid and sharp, but he was sure the known scent of his partner was coming from behind that solidity, to which he touched his way around, until he was met with the soft material of coat, bulky threads of cobwebs and fur, but Tristan tried again to pull away, yet Nick was quick and instantly embraced the agitated tod.

" _I'm here, Tris. Calm down, calm down…_ " Nick whispered and put his paw behind the back of Tristan's head, while slowly lulling them from side to side.

" _I didn't sign for t'is dickery w'en 'ey asked meh garrison at 'Ap! T'is's just like t'at wretc'ed Underbelly, I 'ate t'is shait. I 'ate graveyards, I 'ate tunnels, I 'ate that overweig't psyc'opat' 'ippo, I 'ate t'at stupid w'ore, I 'ate it all!_ " Nick lowered himself and his friend to the cold floor and pushed them closer to what he believed to be a barrier obscuring them from view, despite the obvious fact: it was pitch fucking black. The warm but trembling body that was being hugged managed to make Nick feel even worse and he didn't know why. Could've been the distress he disliked being a viewer to, could've been the reality that they were going to get caught.

" _No, no! Ain't stayin' 'ere anymore, ya're on ya own, Mill. Don't give a shait, t'is place 'as a worse vibe t'an t'at shaitty g'oul temple!_ " Light reflected on the corner of the space they were in, it was very subtle, yet Nick's eyes managed to catch the shape of dug rock in the corners of what looked like to be… he wasn't sure, as the reflections and vision faded and turned to tar yet again.

" _You can't just lea-_ "

" _Try stop me, bitc'._ " Silence befell, silence persevered… the breaths of the two foxes filling in the small amount of audible space between them now, while the flow of air through the forsaken tunnels only was like a spent reminder of the forces past, present and future. In between all that was the new addition of the clanking of the steps again, and the distant and unintelligible curses of that same mammal, whose voice was just too far away to pinpoint a face to, tho only 1 face had been seen today during the kidnapping.

If they just stood there, kept the clothes closed and minimized the heat, their fox smell musky wouldn't be enough for it to be traced in the intimidating surroundings that reeked, not under this grime-infested and dampness place. He was sure, he had to be sure! The trepidation that jumped his heart up again made him whimper under the breath laborious, thus he lowered himself with Tristan to the ground and tried to make them appear like they belonged to the place, whatever it was to be.

The crunches of particles moved at another direction slowly, and at a certain moment it just ceased to be, which made Nick exhale and whisper, " _They'll swoop, we'll wait… and we'll live, yea?_ " But nothing was received in confirmation but the continuous shivers, hence the troubled red tod just surrendered to his plights and zoomed out of his head in an attempt to regain control over himself, and possibly Tristan.

Ah, it was a matter of time before the search would end and they'd be left to find their way back to civilization and comfort. To the warm apartment, with the comfortable beds, tasty food and safety of the walls around them… Oh, the readily-available water as well, how thirsty he just was. He hadn't realized that his mouth was like a desert until now, until his mind had allowed him to think about the luxuries that he had had, about what he had been taking for granted all this time. It just took a day like this, when you'd lack any choice whatsoever, to understand fully how much more you are actually capable of. As long as the choice was to be taken away, then would true potential be shown to one's self.

In a dry smack of lips, Nick smiled and opened his eyes as if expecting to find himself in his bed and out of this disgusting dream. But what he saw was old pale colors of bones big and ashes grey beneath him. Why was he seeing those details, where was the comfortable ink?! Where were its hanging curtains of comfort previously seen as distressing and claustrophobic? His mind wanted answers and he moved his head up above the barrier where the light was flowing from, just to get his eyes blinded from the source on the other side. In that moment of flash his heart nearly broke apart as he knew what was going on. The mammal who was searching for them was standing at the spot they were at not long ago, waiting… waiting…

"Up, slowly," ordered the soggy voice of the mammal, it wasn't that same one that was filled with bitterness. Nick couldn't see the figure, they were hidden. Maybe if they just stood like that, the mammal would think they had seen a ghost and would go away… and what was with these ruddy bones? Were those vertebrae, they were each at the size of two fists, three! The hell were they situated in? No time, no time at all, was there an escape plan, could they run away from somewhere… He looked back, yet saw nothing but more bones pointed upwards in the form of a wall, the grey texture of this dusty and solid surface acting as a slide, from hence the bones were peeking atop.

"Up!" ordered the mammal again, and Nick wanted to pull his ears off his head, how had they been found in the first place, why were they found… Nick tried to prop himself on his knees and put his weight on his feet, but Tristan pulled harshly and defied the attempt with the desperate last-resort hug he surely wanted to cherish even the last second. But time… time was nigh to the end…

The end had come.

He disengaged himself from the iron grip of his partner and rose to his full height, with his right leg stinging the moment he set pressure on it, thus he supported himself on the bone barrier before him, the light blinding his eyes and making him put a paw above his eyes as to lower the volume of intrusion. Still, the brightness was too much, just too much for anything to be distinctly recognized. What was recognized tho was the red dot that he noticed on his chest, exactly on the region of his life pumper. He knew there was a gun trained on him, but seeing the sight it was looking at was just… eating away all his self-esteem as it was just better not to know where the led was going to shred his bones and meat… At least, maybe he'd kill him and leave Tristan alone, maybe… But, him alone here, wasn't it worse than death?

"Don't, please…" Nick whimpered with a lowered head, while angling his body so that the dot was at a corner and not directly over his pressurized life-support.

"Both," the voice affirmed, but Tristan didn't comply, to which Nick just begged whatever power was up there to stop this mammal from fulling his body with holes and his partner's. His paw reached for the crestfallen fox and tried to pull him up, but he was swapped away instantly, to which Nick had no choice but to harshly yank the dark-furred tod up and keep him steady behind him, as at least that was how he could protect him from falling on the floor like a corpse. And what a floor it was, it wasn't gray but brown-yellowish in color with mingles of particles lots, thus the idea of gray had been first explored. The middle of these confines had these sharp ends that trailed all the way to the blinding light. On the other side were the same long bones that were hanging in the air to the middle like skulking vultures stuck in the past.

The need to understand where they were, due to the many assumption that were floating within his head, got him to try and turn around, but the moment he did that the air crackled and got him to lower his head with paws in front of it, due to the shock of this unnatural sound. He immediately felt something to fall on his head with hisses and incredible warmth, which instinctively made him to flinch and move aside with a quick motion that got his paw to touch that thing and push it away in a painful sensation of burning. His nose filled with the smell of burnt flesh and his eyes saw the long body of what looked like a big snake that was twitching and thrashing for its dear life, life that was being consumed by the orange flames.

His jaw agape, Nick instantly tried to use his words to save their dirtied furs, maybe that shot was meant for one of them and not the reptile predator who visibly had been hiding in the crevice of crack that was in the bedrock ceiling, and even hit Nick on the leg with its tail during its last moments of strength. "Don't shoot, don't! W-we'll comply, whatever you say o-or want. Okay-okay? Yes?! Please say something, p-please…" Nick whimpered with a lowered head when he saw the dot situate itself on his body again like a magnet, his claws dug into the floor in anticipation for him to feel the brute force of the bullet enter him and combust him into those demonic flames that had made the reptile silent already.

But the only reality that came to be was that of command, "Walk." Eyes quickly withdrawing from the dust below and onto the light deadly, Nick realized in that very moment that the shorter mammal didn't want to kill them, why else would've he shot that reptile above their heads? Surely if it was that psychopath in the van, they would've been bitten and let to wither slowly… Complying tho was mandatory and that was known, yet that didn't mean he was being disallowed to try and try and try with his words, at least he had to for both his and Tristan's sakes.

"Okay-but hear me out-yea? You don't have to do any of this, I can tell you anything. I've got money, connections! I can tell you where," Nick divulged without holding anything back as their lives were worth more than anything the material and inter-subjective could ever offer. But the reaction received was the smaller mammal lowering the gun, and so the light wasn't blinding them, and motioning it for them to start walking, to which the fox's ears rocketed down in desperation-wide, while his paw tried to remove some cobwebs from the side of his eye. "I promise, I promise, it's a lot of money you will have, all for yourself! All you have to do is just walk away after I tell you the spots. I'll tell you my details so you can have leverage over me, everything is yours! Everything!"

The mammal waited like that with the lowered light, exposing powder passing through the source. Nick couldn't read his face through the damn mask, but the mammal's medium and tidy tail lowered, which meant that a conflict was going through that smaller head, he needed to press on. "I know you don't want to do this, you aren't like them but you have to follow orders. But please just find it in your _heart_ to do the right thing. You can be more than just a low-life criminal…" Nick felt this invigorating bloom within him due to his mind going back to Tristan's own words when he had said that they could be more than just shifty and good-for-nothing cunning foxes, that they could be so much better and thus so much more.

"Just like how we can be _more_ than shifty foxes," softness finalized his most genuine and heartfelt attempt at persuasion of change for the actual greater good, no matter if it were sought because of the need of self-preservation and survival. It didn't change the fact of how he felt when he had said those last words, when he slowly moved his eyes in line with the amber precious of his dearest beside him, who was gawking at him through the firmless posture, nevertheless. In a way, he felt somehow proud for what was articulated, it wasn't something he had thought of a tactic, it had come from his beating heart after all.

Hope was never stronger, even the deal's success felt nothing but dry bleakness to his mind. The smaller mammal was in so much conflict that his fingers were tapping on the butt of the sophisticated rifle absent-mindedly. All of a sudden, the mammal reached for his mask and pulled it half-way, exposing his slightly-opened predator mouth, golden-brown fur and his disheveled whiskers brown, yet he stopped midway to the half extent of his face, as if he was struck by venom in his central nervous system.

Nick needed to boost the confidence, "Do it, make your own decisions for once!" The paw of the smaller predator trembled upon the mask like obvious contemplations and cognition stricken with hesitation. But then, the fingers began pulling down the veil of identitylessness and Nick internally screamed within his skull, while his legs crunched in a reflex that wanted him to take control over the situation, yet that spasm gave pain to the underside of his right foot and his eyes moved down, where he saw crimson, where he saw the trail of his own blood that led through between the smaller predator's legs, while the cobwebs themselves showed disturbance where they had walked through…

 _You idiot!_

"I…" the smaller mammal began in his soggy but shameful tone, "I can't… None of us do," the mammal finalized and pulled down the entirety of the mask, thus again hiding his identity from the eyes of the two foxes trapped, while Nick's disdain for his mistake, in mix with the reality that gutlessness was all around him, it just plugged the groves of nerves with this acidic enmity, which nearly got him to spit bile when his voice erupted inside the hallowed and disowned underground of decrepit.

"Fucking _spineless_ coward!" The words were cancer of the most compressed qualities nasty, his pain was forgotten as his glands gave him this energetic fury. His lips were all bared and made his mouth look like a jaw with the sharpest knives, all the while the smaller mammal pulled up his rifle and blinded both foxes, yet took a step back from this eruption of raw emotion. Nick couldn't wait, his mind wanted only want thing, and it was control, it was _life's_ antlers.

But the moment he stepped forwards, his paw was yanked and something took him all around his body, thus the movement gave way to misbalance and lack of control, to which the ridiculous assault just died in that single step. That scent… that warmth, that heartbeat… Nick made a split-second decision and just buried his nose in that wanted darker fur, breathing in all he could, feasting on the essence for as long as he could, until no more would be in viable position. His wild flare of temper was crossed and all his muscles relaxed into the tenderness of friendship, affection and love…

"I'm a… coward… I'm sorry…" the soggy voice gave brink to the festering silence, which pulled Nick out of that tender heat and melting comfort. He noticed that the mammal had moved aside and had lit the way, yet the words delivered meant only one thing, there wasn't going to be a second asking. Apparently the mammal wanted them to walk in front of him, thus Nick felt for Tristan's paw and intertwined both their fingers with a understanding smile towards his partner, who despite the shivers and look of total misery, managed to peel a small and real one in return as well.

Paw in paw, they took for the path hard, dusty and calcified… The hell were they hiding in in the first place? The light on the side was blinding so Nick had to move his gaze otherwise, where his sight was being blocked by the same strange material with bones above poking like pikes. What kind of architecture was this?

The sightlessness ended and the bigger picture was painted. On the other side, rows of loculi filled the walls in different breadths with the shapes of bodies either in bones or in the same material they had been walking on. Around these loculi, the dug bedrock was sharp, unrefined and old, while deserted cobwebs spanned everywhere without remorse, moisture drooled from the cracks of rock and roots had spread to places of satisfaction.

The immediate question came, were they hiding inside a… His gaze slowly moved back for the first time since they were caught…

Old brownly-discolored extensions of limbs and body parts now distinguishable only by the shear knowledge of what they were supposed to be by the form of a skull-like ancient laid naked in tatters glued, skinless with a severed trunk that had fallen from its jaws and onto its ribs where they had collapsed and formed the insides like a boat in which both foxes had hid in refuge from the wickedness that wanted their heads, yet the boat of salvation gave them nothing but false hope.

It gave Nick this tremble in his legs and squeeze within his guts when his mind just unlocked the imagination of the supernatural and unknown, especially since he now had a very good idea of what this place was and where they had been sitting just minutes ago, inside the corpse of a long-deceased mammal of the past. Inside desecration of a grave open and forgotten, disgruntling its spirit and waking it up so it would roam the Earth once more in seek of a transition into peace craved. Was there truly an afterlife after all this… all this hell on Earth? Would they be allowed into it after having defiled all the traditions laid into the resting places of these mammals now lacking prior form and identity?

All Nick could do was to hug Tristan close and just start moving, as the place now just reeked of dread, death and superficial mysticism that he knew was such, yet his primitive part of mind was just contradicting all reasons and logic. It told him only one instruction: run, live, survive. But how could he follow such an instruction, how could he leave his beloved partner? His sense of dignity to those loyal to him, it was disabling the instincts of self-preservation, despite the severity of their power and encoded computing, which had been passed on especially for such a purpose with the idea that it'd be a fail-safe to anything that'd come so that longevity could be achieved for the bloodline.

They got to the edge of the desecrated loculus and the height to the moist and dusty-dug rock looked too much to Nick's liking and piercing foot. How had they climbed up this and ho… Ah, there at the base was the barely visible mark of blood that hid in the shade that the flashlight was casting at an angle behind them. On the other side were inscriptions of symbols and words that were engraved in a style that wasn't currently decipherable by the fox, he wasn't even sure if they were written in Zootopian. Old and textureless scones were bolted to the walls high with remnants of time being exhibited on their decayed surfaces of the candles and torches where once fires had burned, where once the purpose of vision was nigh, the black soot covering the corners of the ceiling above them.

Now, now they were just there as reminders of a time long gone and past, they were just there as meaningless objects of uselessness that served no more purpose to anyone, to anything… They were redundant. Nick felt sickness when he saw more details of the place old, as he himself soaked the qualities of the abandoned around him, as if they were mocking him that this was his own purpose impending if nothing else was done as actions further. Instinct gave him the courage to turn around, but he was blinded shut by the bright light of the rifle which was too close to home, so he gave up on trying at that very moment and climbed down the loculus with grunts, helping Tristan in par from below, while the dust coated his padded feet again, making fiery ants crawl inside his nerves for the questions came if this was the ash of those rotten…

The two beaten foxes moved on the center of the dusty light and waited, but Nick wasn't waiting for orders, he was waiting for an opportunity for life. The smaller mammal stood on the edge and moved his rifle to the side, the filth-exposing beam focusing on the inner walls of the loculus they had been hiding in. There were some old and broken ceramic pots there with some kind of withered… ashes and bones? Was that what they had tripped on when… Nick's dusty foot felt rather self-conscious at that very moment. Something was embedded on them with what looked like wax, but the smaller mammal in control gestured with the light towards the side where Nick was sure the exit was at, judging from the strides of red his nocturnals could notice with this new additional source of vision.

But it wasn't him who initiated for a surprising change, as Tristan just pulled as if they were being chased by the ghosts of the past. How could Nick blame him, he himself felt as if his rump was being stabbed by nails with every moment he stood still in these… catacombs. The sound of weight, metal and cloth gave echo to the tunnels of the dark city of the damned, but neither Nick nor Tristan turned around, they just walked faster. The sound of movement behind them began in quicker shuffles and they even sounded heavy, which was a shocker as the predator wasn't supposed to appear like he was a heavy trooper.

Ritualistic objects lay on the ashy ground with vases that were filled with the ash of the flowers and plants used in the past. Bottles of glass were filled with soot and strange dry substances within as well as urns, pages of paper, bottles of cut plastic shapes, silt, pieces of rocks many. But what did it matter… this wasn't a place of order and life, this was a place of death.

And Nick, he didn't want to be in here anymore because for the first time since ever, he just felt vehemently daunted from the unknown, from the darkness, from that which his head was creating in such vivid detail. In a way he gave himself reassurance by the presence of his _mate_ and the belief that the situation could not get worse, until…

A deep and frostifying growl was emanated from the belly of these ancient catacombs anachronistic. The distant, ghastly sound bounced from uneven wall to wall, from malfomed corpse to corpse, until it reached the ears of those who now stood still as if time had ceased to be. Petrification heaved any reason in the moment of a blink desolate. All heads and eyes aimed back upon the other direction of the tunnel that was now being lit up, yet its end could not be seen even with the capability of the light reaching further than any normal one would. So many loculi riddled the rows on both sides, turns and crossroads were like veins to the main artery the three living mammals were on. But if this was the highway, by whom was it being used.

The shorter mammal stood his ground and raised his rifle in readiness like an experienced warrior, but then his legs betrayed his courage as they began trembling sporadically.

Nick was about to make a split-second decision in craving anticipation for right to happen, yet that moment just wasn't coming... Fleeing was currently not an option as his body felt weak, his leg anguishable... the situation they were in was like a fever dream from his worst nightmare life could throw at him. The smaller mammal clenched the rifle in his paws like it was the only thing keeping the unknown away, while Nick felt like the darkness they were put in was dislikable, the source before them at the dissatisfactory distance was attracting them like insects to light during the night.

A courageless whimper mumbled, then came this miserable yell, "Come, furless freaks!" But instead of advancing, he took a step back with his tail between his legs, while his paw touched something on the barrel of the gun almost robotically. This was an opportunity, this was it! There was no better moment than the moment before them, so he chose to take it with tooth and claw, despite the pain of Tristan's grip that made him grunt as he got out of it and sneaked silently towards the horrified shorter predator. The rumbling growl that had filled the tunnels wasn't on his mind anymore, for him it was more of a savior than a threat, as that was how his mind had chosen to see it at this current speck of time. He wasn't stopped by his partner and he was glad by that, tho the nag in his mind kept throbbing that something could happen to him amidst the lonely darkness black, that the beast who had made this ruckus was to catch him the moment the vision fluttered off…

The shorter mammal yelled again the same words with even less authority than before, and Nick extended his claws on both sides of his frame, while increasing his step. Just a few more strides and the mammal would be silenced forever… But silence wasn't what was going to be, as the haunted shorter predator filled the air with the painful explosions that lit the continuation of the dark and unseen tunnel. Red glowed from the rifle's middle from where several more casings flew out of in the tints of magmatic red. Nick couldn't hold onto his sanity, as the threshold of pain was crossed, so he clamped his paws to his ears with a scrape on his cheek from his own obsidian claws. He nearly fell to his knees from the sheer volume of noise the rifle made as it was shot, apparently without a silencer.

But how could he be thinking about his well-being and the signals of his body when the shorter mammal was just within reach, why was he allowing himself excuses! In his haste amidst pain and deafness, he carelessly tried to make the final move, but instead of tackling the smaller mammal to the ground, all that happened was the realization that failure was met, when all he saw was the coils of electricity underneath the barrel, with the sensation of burning instant-jolt of pure hatred that pierced his skin with voltage and filled all his moisture with amperage. His eyes opened all the way, his jaw got stuck as if nailed to the floor, his arms froze and fingers looked like the claws of an old tree that pulsated with every millisecond of shock.

It felt like an eternity, but all it took was more than a second in which Nick had fallen to the ground and had lost all sense of reality, while the front of the rifle sputtered visible coils of electricity from before the shivering shorter predator. "Up, now-now-now! Go!" He yelled with a sense of urgency and kicked at the torturous fox, whose jaw finally snapped open with spit coating all the fangs and lips. Nick screamed the life out of him as he was finally able breathe and control his body, to which he quickly tried to get up after the second kick into his back. But getting up was like climbing a mountain, exhausting and slow, with the addition the effect that one would get after having walked for 40 kilometers non-stop.

His paws pushed him up unsteadily, but as he carelessly tried to get on his two unsteady feet, he failed and headed into a dive, as his body tried to push him down flat on his face with his legs rushing in for the rescue rapidly, each step on uneven rock, each step flaring his injured leg. Everso, he in a way readied himself for more abuse from the environment amidst the muscle contractions triggering everywhere on his body without relent, but all he was given was warmth and a cushioned catch with an appealing musky aroma of maleness, of distinctiveness. He pushed himself back from the warmth of this gorgeous body and saw the worried ambers of Tristan, who seemed to have lost the dread for himself and had directed it at Nick…

"Now, _nooow_!" screamed the panic behind them, to which Nick's body complied without second thought due to the electrocution he had to live through those distraught seconds down and the jolt he was receiving the aftereffects still. The two tods quickened towards the stairs that were in short view, and began clambering up the steps with the light behind them and the rather loud breathing of the dread-stricken mammal heavy, who even sounded as if he were mumbling something to himself, or chanting... Nick couldn't take the steps easily as they were made for bigger mammals, his injuries, cuts and bruises not helping even one bit, especially the shock his body was trying to fix itself from. He hated that he had put his weight partially on Tristan, but what else was there in the basket of options?

The steel staircase appeared to have wooden joints that had rotten to this black powdery tar. Small candles used and otherwise stood at the base from where the stairs extended like limbs, but all those had lost their previous colors, they were a husk of the past that was used to show the dead the way, to guide them true. A loud creak came from above that stopped both foxes from moving, followed by rapid steps that changed to loud clanks on the metal stairs. Nick knew that the time for opportunities, it was over as a familiar frame of thin-legged mammal and long muzzle came into view, as well as something else that was peeking out from between his undone zipper with spots of what appeared to be… urine.

"Shait ya doin' pissed me pa-" the mammal abruptly shut his mouth and stared at the two foxes who did the same back, with Nick's gaze not managing to remain on the mammal's masked face, as the golden canine fur down there was kinda distracting, at least the sheath was keeping the naked longness safe. But then those legs around that sheath dashed, and in shocking time, the indecent mammal crunched the air out of Tristan's belly, while yelling indecipherable obscenities. Nick quickly tried to grab for the frenzied predator, but was instantly backfisted into the mouth where his nerves spiked the sensation of mind-dazing pain that got him to back off and reach for his muzzle, where it was as if a hornet had stung the nerve itself.

"Ya'll run like cunts? Run now, bit-"

"Go, go- now! _Now_!" yelled the smaller predator who tried to go around the two bent foxes, but the taller mammal got in front the path and blocked the way, to which two bodies collided, but only one took a step back, and that was the panicked smaller predator. "You're out your mind, they're coming I tell-you."

"Ye lost 'e nuts?" was the question that came, but the reaction was, without any reason, a rifle aimed at the taller mammal, who nearly tripped back as he climbed a step backwards. "Get over it, Mill. Ya damn cunt-snugger, lay down."

"You d-don't k-know, move off…"

"Lower the rifle rig't fuckin' now, ya senile piss'ead!" the taller mammal moved towards the smaller predator and Nick tried to make a move then and there, but the flash of eye the taller mammal gave, expunged his motivation, thus he just move closer the his groaning partner, who was curled into himself from the blow, while Nick tried to stifle the pain that was coursing through his teeth with all mental capacity available.

"I-it's them, they're here, I heard," the shorter mammal pointed at the darkness behind them as his flashlight was aimed still at the bigger predator, who didn't appear to have an issue with the blinding effects, or was he trying to appear as if he wasn't being phased by it?

"Ere?" the taller mammal asked and stood for some moments in puzzlement, "ya out ya zone, coward-cunt." He moved in front the gun defiantly and shoved the shorter mammal away from his path, while his paws snatched the rifle from those shivery paws, yet the shorter mammal reacted instantaneously and pulled out a big knife from his belt that sizzled with the sound of electricity.

But the tall mammal didn't even react to the move, as he pulled his mask up from the area of his nose that revealed his reddish-brown fur around his upper lips and his purple nostrils, which breathed in several deep sniffs, while the sound of crackling and the wide-eyeness of the shorter mammal filled the atmosphere. The posture of the taller mammal straightened, but then he slumped into a sort of annoyance with the rifle's flashlight aimed at the phased shorter predator, not forgetting to pierce, "Only t'ing 'ere's a lil' bitc'n two cocksuckers. Get movin', is nearly nig't," he commanded and looked over at the two foxes, to which Nick didn't wait around and helped Tristan up, after that they began quickly climbing the rest of the steps, the flashlight of the assault rifle guiding their way and casting big shadows from their bodies that wobbled onto the surfaces that they touched.

Nick could still feel the aftereffects of the shock his body was forced through as well as the aching tooth he was sure was either broken or chipped. But as Tristan whimpered through another step, his own worries were thrown away to the pains of his partner, to which he tried to remove his weight as to reduce the stress upon the darker-red tod, but his efforts were fruitless, the dark-grey paw was holding tight.

The stairs came to an end with a familiar but darker sight familiar, the resting spots of those long gone, which now had a better light from where the roof had been long protruded, as if showing from hence those lost souls had escaped these inhospitable cages. It could've been the dark frown of the moon, or the tired last glances of the sun. What did it matter tho, they were heading back to their own dug grave, they were heading for their demise certain… Nick grit his throbbing teeth and tried once more, "Check the documents, there's enough for you there, you can ex-"

"S'ut it!" the tall predator yapped and gave a hard kick on Nick's back, which got him to almost fall if not for Tristan supporting him. Still, the force vibrated through the entirety of his back that had been roughened up lots when he was thrown out the dingy van and onto the even dingier earth crumbly, dusty and dry. His arms felt weak with his back slumping forwards due to the lack of energy of keeping himself proper, as those nerves responsible for control had been just numbed beyond normality.

"There's money, I'll tell you where, I'll-"

"Money?" The steps behind them stopped, but only those heavier as the lighter ones rushed on and passed by the two foxes with the loud shuffling of his strapped equipment, knife still sizzling in paw and eyes bulged into insanity. Nick was actually curious to why this reaction was taking place, but the interest, in the voice the taller predator, gave him a tingle of hope yet again.

"Yes, money, a lot, I'll tell you. Just, don't lead us there!" Nick tried to disengage from Tristan's grip but failed to do so and just looked at the bright light that was glaring at them. He didn't know if he was going to receive a zap, a kick or actual results…

"W'ere's it?" the taller mammal asked and Nick's tail nearly wagged because none of the painful outcomes came to be. But the patience he went through because of this made the taller predator annoyed, "Tell me, fox, w'ere's it! Ain't f-"

But the old rusty doors were flung open at the entrance and Nick quickly dashed his gaze there where the shorter predator was in a stance for defense, while the knife glowed in his paw. In front of him was another masked mammal with these medium antlers, who was carrying what looked like a rifle in their hooves, while light shone through their chest that was visibly armored with some kind of kevlar vest, tho it looked way more sophisticated. The mammal took a step back and aimed the rifle at the shorter mammal, but was quick to move the sights down.

 _"Mill, wha- oh, poor you…"_ The voice of the mammal sounded soft and feminine, but Nick was quickly drawn by the hoarseness that even grabbed his coat and pulled him in the air.

"W'ere's, fox, spill it out or I'll break ya fingers one by one!" Nick felt his tail having been grabbed and hoped that Tristan wasn't going to hold onto it as to try and keep him close, yet his pulled-currently nerves were telling him otherwise. The breath of this mammal smelled wrong, the eyes that were the same shade of those of Tristan, they looked way older and somehow sickly. There were missing teeth and visible cracked ones, which all concluded that this mammal was a brute and wouldn't care much for the well-being of others, especially with how he reacted to the money part of possible extortion. He was going to get it through torture… Nick was regretting his attempt already.

"You foundly 'em, where were theyly?" the feminine voice asked, and Nick noticed her having taken the knife from the shorter predator, who had hugged himself miserably in the corner close to the exit.

"Shait off, I'll lead dem back in a minute, take the coward back wit' ya," the thin-legged predator shot to the antlered female, but none of that happened. She caressed the shorter mammal's cheek and stood up.

"We are to bring themly immediately to the site. Put that smally fox down and get themly moving," she commanded in a way, which sparked spit out of the thin-legged mammal that landed on Nick's face all around.

"Ya don't give orders 'ere, munc'ing slut!" animosity filled the defiled resting place of the dead, but then he instantly dropped Nick and leveled the assault rifle, which was a bit smaller for his paws, due to being surely designed for the shorter predator, at the antlered female, who was visibly aiming her rifle at him and moving forwards in a confident stride. The fall caused Nick's rump to take the damage on a protruding piece of rock, to which he wheezed and nearly fell on his face if not for Tristan who hugged into him and held him steady. If Nick didn't know better, he would've thought that the tod was addicted to him, but the time for humour was dead like the surroundings themselves.

All this suffering, it finally made Nick to surrender and he just let himself melt into the cushion of his partner that was the embrace that was given to him in the dreadful moment in time. Escape no longer stood in his head as everything in his body ached, throbbed or pulsated in this disgusting feeling his nerves categorized as negative and his understanding as pain. His gaze lifted slowly as to see what was going to happen next, and he saw another interesting scene happening around them. The thin-legged predator had backed up to the stairs and down, so that only his upper half of the body was visible, while the extremely bright-light filled Nick's eyes with repulsion, thus he looked the other way where he saw the antlered female next to them holding her ground with her, rather old, bolt rifle looking directly at the stairs themselves. Were they playing a tug of war for control?

The scents of incense, soot, dampness and tension curtained the air heavily, but no loudness came to be, no gunpowder was spilled, no clothes were ripped and no blood was burned. Only words were spoken and actions were deferred, "Git on, you two small troublemakers, beforely I drag you by your longy tails, git," the female ordered and gestured with the rifle towards the stuck door that was now letting air stream in eeriness, the shorter mammal standing there and staring at the ground from a thousand yards within his own head. Nick didn't want to, his head wanted him to speak the words so it'd be done, but then he was dragged up by shivering paws, and his eyes drowned in Tristan's who appeared to have recomposed himself, as there was focus in there again, the focus only a fox could have.

They began moving towards the exit without consent and Nick heard the female say, "She'll like hearing thatly you're a liability, anoxie. That kindly makes me happity," there was coldness in those warmly-spoken words, and Nick was shocked that there was no retort incoming, but he didn't care too see what the bodies had to say, so they continued moving into the dim world outside. Steps became so behind them and there were no loud zapping sounds or excruciating experiences. They passed by the detached shorter mammal who was solely responsible for finding them, yet Nick held no malice for him, seeing the dejection and misery the mammal had and was going through, it was enough for Nick to actually tug a smile of amusement due to his own misfortune that was allowed to persist. He liked the karma of it.

" _Comie, Milly, let's get you back 'fore you go back therely again…_ "

They passed the entrance in a limpy fashion and Nick filled his lungs with fresh air that actually felt warm, the remnants of heat the day held still persevering against the elements, and brining some sort of comfort for the tod, who felt as if nearly broken and to the verge of shatter. The darkness that was ensuing, a mocking abstract to the inevitable future that they were walking into like prisoners marched during war into liquidation for the crimes existent or none. The leaves were rustling calmly under the breath of nature, preparing the soothing silence before the slaughter. The dead lay restrained in their beds of stone and rotten wood, disliking the idea of intervening to save those who didn't deserve what was to be, what shouldn't have been.

Nick's apathy was keeping him dejected still, while his injured foot was hurting everytime he put too much weight on it and not on his sweet partner. He couldn't muster ideas as to get the mammal capturers to shift their decisions, if not they would further embed them in problems, possible torture… No, no… that was even wronger, more difficult to live through and keep the tale to the head, due to the tale being not one of need to be known by anyone else living. So much overgrowth there was everywhere where the eye looked, while the paths walked by the mammals behind them were visible in other directions previously that were undisturbed.

" _Couldn't guess those twoie be hiding there of all places, no wonderly you're all shaken up… This is a ghastly placie, Milly._ "

The wall of thorns had a passage, the passage they had done, the passage that was even larger, as those behind them had hunted for their pelts. The angry thorns looked appealing now tho, their fine ends were actually fascinating under the last specks of light Nick's nocturnals were decrypting into colors. Insects could be seen on the stems and leaves, going about on their lives and reality, visibly not caring for the giant mammals walking by in a march of death. Crows croaked nearby in the disturbed crows of the trees, their taunts sounding as jeers to the crushed tod…

" _It's fine, we'll get you back and you'll sleepy it off. Like brandly newie you'll be!_ "

The rough ground of toppled bushes and dangerous spikes slowed down the two foxes, with the steps behind getting louder, which made Nick's fur to instinctively feel like on fire to the memories of pain that regress had resulted in. Such psychological terror gave Nick the lunge to get moving even if the ground was as if on blaze itself. That strained the dark-red tod next to him in grunts and low whimpers, while the ribs around his frame ached in the bruised kingdom of misery.

" _You missedly it when that masochist felly on his face, hih. You would've enjoyed it, I didie._ "

It took some time to go through the same route, tho darker, yet way less claustrophobic than before, it was like the last trial, tho Nick held no more interest to think as his head had surrendered all attempts, while seeking the only thing that his legs were begging for, rest intact. The exit came to be with that wretched clearance they had stood in, but now it was different under the shade of the incoming night, distant moon and… the big body in the middle of the ground and grassless coarse dirt. On top that body stood the slick figure, with those sharp features of spots and feminine allurement. She was inspecting her tail in boredom, while the body slowly moved in apparent breaths below.

The foxes crossed through the grass, the sound of shuffling many stems catching the ears of the female, whose face flinched with her feet digging into the mass of flesh and lurching her to the ground. Her movements were swift, because when she landed, she was sprinting full speed at the two foxes. Nick tried to move away from the charging cheetah, but the speed she came with wasn't slow enough for his mind to give signal to his electrocuted muscles, thus a strong force grabbed into his throat and toppled him on his back grinding.

His yell was stifled and his breath was impossible to take, his prior having been forced out into the slowly perishing cold. He was holding onto Tristan with his dear life, and could feel that the dark tod was in the same position as him. "Causing me hassle, wasting my time! Should just do it now," she hissed and her strong paws squeezed ever so hard into Nick's throat, the whimpers and thrashes next to him brutally clawing at his heart for him to do something and stop this heinous filth. But his head was getting dizzy and his paws couldn't overpower the female's tougher ones.

Tho the need for breath was greater, the cheetah's plans appeared to be even more so as she let them both go with reactions of loud gasps and squirms on the now-disturbed and ruined grass. Nick reached for his throat and tried to protect his body by appearing as small as possible, but that caused his ribs to shriek in a searing reaction, to which his spine arched the other way around in an illusion that gave perturbance to attempts of self destruction. But then it was another sensitive part of his body that was given choice to, his tail that was now being used for a way to pull him at a destination that he only saw as sky and blurry numerous. The same could be heard next to him as well as felt, due to Tristan's paws going in every direction at the probable attempt of stopping this dementia.

It did stop, finally. But then Nick was hauled up, while his own state of new numbness gave no reaction to the mammal in front of him, his ears were excluding the sound that was now turned into babbling ridiculous from within and throughout. For a moment he thought it was funny, but then pain stung his cheek and made sound finally enter his ear with this high frequency of ringing, while the mind focused to the cause of suffering as to increase his chances of instinctive survival.

"Listen, fox. Listen or I'll cut you maw off before you," the cheetah's words finally registered, and Nick shook his head in a last attempt to focus his eyes before the navy snakish sneering. As she noticed that he was looking at her intently, she brought up another… mammal in the picture in Nick's vision, that mammal being the dirty, tattered and sorry-looking fox that was Tristan. His previous exemplary visage at the docks was now but a poor imitation that reeked of misery cobwebbed, which Nick new was his own appearance to date. Something else was caught in the web of pictures, that being the grave that had been dug before the confrontation of teeth. Were they going to…?

"Merle carries out all the ordersh, he tracks the stolen shtock and ishh, ugh," Nick's head spun for a moment, his mouth no longer feeling the same as it had swelled where he had been hit by brutish will, but he forced himself back to the real world, "alwaysh talking about knowing all, and not paying anyone, I heards him, I can tell you where you can finds him," Nick quickly flung the words like a racing car on energies unseen. The female cheetah stopped with a sidestare at the red fox, which was his queue to continue going with what he was additionally moving to say about the old crook that could give them some more lifetime, but all he got was a dejected scoff of disinterest.

"He's dead, 2 weeks ago," she declared without emotion that got Nick's ears to fall further than what was physically the limit of the tendons there.

"Gnawsh! He hash been going around searcshing for more membersh for his new so-called shyndicate of revolution. Bashed in Happytown, I'm shure I can help you withs him, I know how tshey work and wshere they do business," Nick proudly declared as if this was his trump card, which it was, due to him not knowing anything else worthy of mention that wouldn't get his fingers smashed, or Tristan shaved and drowned in dirt before him. This in a way was actually the real limit. These mammals weren't interested in money, apart from the thin-legged mammal who was skulking somewhere else and not in view still.

"Never heard of him," she answered plainly and pulled what Nick saw as the end.

The only thing he was seeing was the perfectly manufactured steel that was meant only for one thing and one thing alone, to end the dreams of others. This was meant to stop his life, his whole fucking 21 years of life that he had built, while going through hell to just come to where he was. He had found stability, connections, opportunities and love… and now, now all was to be taken at the pull of a simple and old trigger that'd put a hole in his brain and shut off his link to reality forever, a switch pulled and unwanted, yet there and soon to be clicked. But then happened something extraordinary and… it was one of his worst fears to come.

"Stupid whore," were the uttered words that stopped the female cheetah with stupefiedness in her eyes bright, the sounds of clothes shuffling and movement arousing behind him, yet his sight only gave notice to the revolver and cheetah. The bile in his mouth, it was dread incarnate.

"Did I hear right, fox?" she snapped back as she leveled the gun at Tristan's temple and drew her teeth like pikes, yet Tristan was frowning at her with such putridness that Nick thought the dark-red tod's body was going to lose the containment of it and blight the land with the seed of black.

"Acting almighty, yet you're nothing but a scared little insecure bitch! Fuck you!" Tristan yelled and tried to stand up but she kicked him in the sternum and pinned him to the ground with loud growls and twitchy fingers, yet Tristan grabbed dirt and threw it at her, to which she yelled desperately, surely because she wasn't being feared, thus kicked the young fox hard. Tristan gagged and emptied acid all over himself, due to the lack of anything solid in his belly. Nick didn't want to stay idle, his mind was screaming at him to go and try to push her into the hole, but his instinct, with the information around him to the mammals, who had now stopped nearby and were watching, the instinct was telling him to stay still.

"Not so gorgeous now are you? Disgusting freak. Hey! Get him on his knees!" she screamed at the thin-legged mammal with a demanding-pointing of her finger, and moved away from Tristan and closer to Nick, while not peeling her glare away for even a moment. "Put your zipper on, idiot," she added to the same mammal, who grunted and tried so in motion. But just as she stopped close to Nick, with his mind trying to find gaps in her awareness, her paw shot for his coat and she pulled his whole body towards where Tristan was now being put to knees. Nick hated when mammals could so easily toss him around like an unwanted toy, but he was just a fox and couldn't be much more than that… Yet that big mammal had been handled nearly the same, the power of weaponry, the power of the modern age.

He was put right before Tristan but was raised on his feet, with the face of the cheetah coming close to his, her scent getting into his nostrils and her predatory and dominant behavior plummeting his confidence to a new low. "Want a good deal foxy? I know you love 'em!" she playfully said and looked over at Tristan whose saliva was slowly dripping from his mouth. What the hell had Tristan done, this was meant for him to bear!

"We have money, connections, anything you want!" Nick screamed and got the cheetah to wince from loudness, thus bearing her lips in a slow regain of composure.

"Too late for that, hon. Should've sold batteries to kits… Now, I want you to have a good look at him," she demanded and Nick did so not because of her, but because of the idea of what was to happen next and the disability of seeing Tristan like this. "This will be the last time you see him like this," she stated in a happy manner that got Nick's claws to jerk and his jaw to hurt in want to shoot for her jugular, but he could see the revolver pointing at his ribs.

"I can make up for it all. ANYTHING!" Nick screeched as he tried to get away from her hold, but she was strong and put hard pressure around the backside of his neck, so much that for a moment his eyes blurred out.

"We don't need your filth you d—"

"Boss, don't ya t'ink we s'ould ask 'i—" the thin-legged mammal tried to intervene as he held Tristan in place and not failing, but the words seemed to anger the cheetah as she pointed the gun at him with shaky paws.

"My call, or it's you!" she snapped and cocked the hammer, to which the tall mammal took a step back and lowered his head in obedience, almost dropping Tristan who was weakly being held kneelishly on the dirty earth. "This is the deal, you show me how sorry you are… or… well," she gestured the revolver towards her own head without a doubtful motion.

"I will, yes! Please!" Nick vigorously shouted and even smiled with hope to her, he didn't care what he had to do, if it meant saving his most precious mammal on this Earth, he'd do that sacrifice.

"Good," she finalized and removed her paw from him. Everything was going to be alright, this was just an intimidation tactic to get them to bend and agree to be controlled and manipulated, it was all a farce that led them to this point of time, and Nick was glad that it wasn't going to result in that single thought that was plaguing his mind in ash to this moment. He had to promise them money and information, he had to do dirty work if asked an— But the thoughts ended there, he felt her touch his paw and level it to his chest where the cold and warm metal touched his brown pads.

His eyes stared down at the beast that smelt so much of gunpowder, so much of death that he was to nearly drop it if not of the haunt of getting the cheetah mad. It was slick, it was visibly an old but beautiful piece, with engravings of roses around its sides, yet its uses were diminishing the beauty with disgust. How many lives had this taken, how many dreams had it shattered and smashed out of existence, how much pain had it caused…

Crows jeered and flocked close to the trees around, the headless Death being witness to all moments in front.

"I don't understand," Nick mumbled as he moved his eyes at hers, fully and entirely abashed and confused to the core of what was wanted of him. But then her navy orbs moved towards Tristan, who was weakly gazing at them, and her smile turned into such a nasty grin, it made him want to smash her teeth into her mouth, yet it couldn't be done, it couldn't. But then it clicked what was wanted of him, he fully understood what she needed him to do. She wanted him to betray the mammal he cherished the most, she wanted him to be the fox society had labeled him being and do what they'd see as normal behavior, she wanted him to kill his future mate, his partner and childhood friend. It sickened him to the last cell of his beaten and defiled body.

But he didn't say anything, his paw grabbed the gun hesitantly and he moved the nostril shakily towards his friend, his precious partner. Why was he complying, why was thinking of doing it, why was his instinct telling him to save himself, why was he holding the bane of life's end at the mammal who trusted him most, who believed in him? Nick's eyes watered, he couldn't hold himself and his teeth grit in a nasty scrunch that resulted in a searing sensation due to the cracks already present. He only had to comply, to give into the demands, to accept this reality and to live, to live another day and experience the same sometime in the future, to find someone else…

But who else was he going to find, it was never going to be the same, like this. The uniqueness of their relationship, their memories and hardships they had to go through, this was something no one else could give or even attempt, yet if that was the only way of life, why not take it and just… live… His mouth opened and his eyes grazed the disgusting female next to him, but she spoke before he could articulate anything. "One word from you, both deads," she declared and frowned deeply, so that Nick gulped and felt his lungs contracting in swelter, his guts twisting, his knees shaking.

 _Where…_

The hammer had been clicked, his finger moved inside and touched the sensitive trigger, just a little more soothing pressure and it'd hit the cartridge that'd send the qualities of death at the mammal he adored, believed in and… loved… The worst part about it all was that he was considering it, he was at the brink of doing it, he was going to become everything Tristan had tried to help him get away from… He was going to become _the_ fox. His heart was squeezing, his mind wheezing, the air itself felt toxic and his stomach retched in loath at his choice that was to come, it made him want to point the gun at himself and just end it so he wouldn't have to live with it…

And then, Tristan's fear amidst determination expressed a smile, not a normal smile Nick would usually see from him, but one that spoke acceptance of what was to be done, one that was meant to give the mind, of the heartbroken fox, the push to do this vile deed of necessary evil. It almost got him to want be done with it. His jaw, clenched so feverishly that blood was now streaking on the sides of his lips.

 _In the world… is this place…_

"I love you, Nick…" Tristan uttered with strain as he spat acidic contents from his mouth that was mingled with crimson. The words cut in sharply and got the weapon to lower slightly, they cut into his resolve like a katana blade upon flesh unprotected. The smile turned even brighter as the tod's golds leered deeply into Nick's beryls, expressing his full emotions to the last drop, until the final part came that got Nick's body to freeze in bewilderment and total dubious inability, "Don't you… forget about me…"

The revolver instantly fell down and Nick nonchalantly was to aim it at the thin-legged mammal, after his heart and head had processed everything needed, but a hard hit came to his wrist and got him to lose his grip upon death's messenger. The crows, they were getting louder.

His body was shoved with great strength towards Tristan, and he was put to knees just before his partner, who just kept staring with this affection at Nick, it was unnerving and at the same time, Nick felt reassured and faithful that he hadn't made that choice, that he had chosen the honest way out, he could see the pride in Tristan's eyes that streaked tears of full pureness. But the moment lasted almost to no amount, the words that came marked the beginning of the end.

"Oh, he won't," the filthy cheetah declared in view of the headless statue behind her that appeared as if it was giving His approval by the inaction present. The croaks were loud...

That was when the revolver was put against Tristan's temple and the finger of the cheetah pressed into the irreversible futility which brought fire, red, pain and full disclosure of squalor. And so the chants of croaks scattered.

Blood spew out of the hole from the side of Tristan's head and his body crumbled to the side without any further motions, Nick's head was grabbed and he was forced next to his now-dead partner. The sanguineness, it began falling onto his own head and Nick tried to get away… but couldn't, he could see there was no more life in Tristan's eyes, pieces of his skull and brain, his skin and fur… His tongue lifelessly blanketed the dry soil, while his ruby stood glistering underneath it all. Nick couldn't understand what had happened, he was in crippling insanity, but then his mind jolted and the sides of his skull began thumping and squeezing in, his eyes fully entered an emotional breakdown and his paws reached for the still-warm body of his friend.

 _Where…_

The grip around his head subsided but he didn't care, he didn't want to create space between them anymore, his head moved as close as possible to Tristan, and his paws grabbed the corpse into a desperate hug, as if it was going to create a miracle and repair the damages done.

 _In the world…_

So much sorrow filled his core, so much despair grabbed his heart, every fiber of his fur felt like sickness and his mind was like the most abhorrent places of all. Why did he let this happen, how could he let this happen! He was so sure that the next bullet would be for him tho, he didn't care as his grief enveloped the body, with his claws digging in like hooks into the clothes of Tristan. The blood was trying to get into his eyes and nose, it was telling him to get away from the stain but he didn't want to, he wanted to be next to him in his last moments, he wanted to show him that he'd never do what he had appeared of thinking of doing…

 _Is this place…_

If he was just more careful about what they had done, if only he was more subtle with their ways of making money, yet they had never done something too transgressive or attempting of taking power within Happytown, or anywhere else on that matter, it was all calculated off risk and then integrated upon. Where was the mistake that had been done, where was the fucking mistake that cost them their damn lives! Nick began trying to cradle Tristan but failed, thus burrowed his head further into the gape of his neck and just continued shivering and crying out his entire existence.

 _I won't accept this…_

If he had only agreed to take the gondolas, they'd have been home now and experiencing new adventures, they'd have had the time of their life overlooking from above the sights of the magnificent city, a city now that he viewed as grody, ugly and filled with loath, there was nothing more else to hope. Everything optimistic that had life within him had now crumbled from the tallest heights and into the ground, thus resulting in soot all around his mind that was molded into madness, malice and need of revenge, yet it was overpowered by this indescribable woefulness within his heart, it was shrinking in slowly and getting his breaths unable to saturate his need of air. It was as if he was… dying…

 _Am I in… hell?_

The warmth around him turned into coldness, it began leeching the one from his own body, and he was starting to lose it, while the cold wind was brushing the top of his head. Why was he still alive, why could he still think and feel, why wasn't blackness and eternal nothingness present within him… His head moved back, and he slowly opened his eyes with clotted blood all around his face, there was total gloom, no more light could be seen anywhere but the tall and distant ink of sky. He turned around himself as to see where those beasts were, but there was no one and nothing, just nature's silence. How much time had passed since this had happened? How long was he within his misery and detachment of this ugly world…

All his joints ached, his body was now numbly shivering uncontrollably, and he reluctantly made some space between himself and Tristan, yet something caught his eye as it glinted in the darkness just next to Tristan's bushy tail. Nick's nocturnal vision managed to see that this was that exact same revolver that had blood around its muzzle, and seeing it made him so mad, it enraged him, to which his paw reached and grabbed the evil incarnate, while his legs wobbly got him up, and his body moved towards the goal of revenge, as he desired to shoot all the bullets into those savage scum who dared to see themselves as more than animals, they were worse than rot!

But there was just twilight and nothing else, but the wilderness and the eerie wind that came from the cemetery, frog songs danced from afar, while crickets loudly added to the noise in attempts to sway Nick's mind from what had happened. His eyes had stopped leaking, but his mind now became blank after realization that he was alone, alone in a haunted place, alone with the corpse of his beloved, alone in this brutal world… He gripped the revolver with the forces of anguish and began squeezing as if trying to break it apart, but that got him to accidently open the cylinder and expose something peculiar… there was just a single bullet.

 _This world… I hate it…_

He understood what he had to do. The cylinder clicked shut and his legs despondently moved him towards the body of what was once a source of warmth and thoughts. Nick put the revolver into one of his coat's pockets and tried lifting Tristan off the ground, but Tristan was so heavy, Nick's paws were so weak, yet Nick groaned loudly as he attempted to put his dead partner over his back, but that resulted in his legs crippling and his ribs just outright exploding in a cry of surrender… So cold, so lifeless… The body was on him, and Nick couldn't move it away, the Earth's gravity was like iron, the chill was like ice. Weakness, that word gave the best description Nick's mind could conjure within the cacophony of irrationality. Tristan's feet were squishy, his gorgeous tail full of dust and scatters of foliage… There were no warm words or embarrassed reactions, there was no life in his eyes…

Nick gave push to the heavy weight and adjusted himself so that Tristan's head was on in his lap, where the pads of auburn stroked the cold fur of his partner.

 _I hate you all…_

He managed to pull through the hostile environment of his head in a moment of clarity, but his thinking stumbled to the fur under his paw, to which Nick couldn't hold himself anymore and released the next wave of tears that filled his head with stress and his nostrils with more mucus… The coldness of the night, the warmth that was willingly given to his dead friend, it was pummeling Nick as he again felt that awful loneliness, that lack of point of existing…

His body didn't want to get up, it wanted to stay there until plants would start growing from him and make him forget about everything, to take him and use him to create something new, something pure and without memories of the past. But then he growled at himself, thus starting to fix the ruined coat of his friend, by tugging it shut so that less warmth was escaping from the inner most parts of the deceased body.

Nick tried to remove some of the dust off the ruined coat, until he just stopped and goggled at the fully lifeless ambers that stared into the tall void. Nick then smiled with strain and took a glance at a star formation. The night view and clear sky sure was incredible, but it all was stale for Nick, he could taste the blood in his mouth, it was the only scent his nose was picking up and his eyes were bloodshot red with dampness and very dark circles round.

 _What's the point of this wretched life…_

His eyes gazed into the sparkling oceanic ceiling that was winking at him as if mocking his situation, as if jeering at him, and to push him towards the final choice that would be the decisive moment for the end of pain. All it took was… he glanced at Tristan for a moment, looking at the elegant collar that had stains of blood, the long muzzle now ruined with discolors of red and other fluids that made Nick gag. The eyes kept on staring into nothingness, but their lifelessness was so cruel and cold, it made Nick try to close them, but Tristan's eyelids were just going back to the previous ghastly position, which frustrated Nick with whimpers and got him to look away with limbs close to his core.

Uncertainty for the future… but what future was there if he was to do it all alone. Sure there were other friends, but this death hit too close to his heart and he just didn't want to care anymore, he wanted the fierce throbbing to stop finding him and to leave him alone… Forever. His ears blocked out the noise of nature that was trying to stop him, as they filled with bloodful thumpings, while his tears stopped to the price of very shaky paws that reached for his pocket from where came the breath that gave death.

What really was the point? With any of it? Where was the solace, the respite from the harshness and mockery of life? Are we so easily taken in by the idea of getting a job and raising a family and finding... finding love, that we ignore the fact it so utterly futile? There was no difference between any of them - between himself and the silent ones who slept in peace beneath the earth, what they had been when they had walked. They had shared the same hopes and aspirations, they had looked upon this world with the same lively eyes. They had dreams, hopes, fears, loss... but none of that mattered anymore... they were all dead now. To be, or not to be. To suffer the hardships, the mockeries, the sticks and stones of life or, in the act of refusing, of standing against the false hopes and farcical impressions of happiness... to die. To… _sleep_.

Friction, oil, sanguine iron… he stared at the revolver, he stared deeply and for a long time until his aching lungs drew an explosive breath that got him to raise the gun to his head and click on the hammer, thus cocking the cylinder and readying it for the end. His paw shook now violently, a part of him didn't want it to end, but the other one was begging him for this to be the last chapter of the book, this hole in his heart to stop infecting the surroundings. A crozzled premise of eternal anguish. He tried to recollect all his happy memories and use them as an excuse to lower this mistake, but all he got were the moments when his father left, the day he was muzzled, the speciest bullies in school, his Mother's breakdown, the violence of the streets, the tribulations of Tristan's own life that ended with his death, and the loneliness that wanted to feast upon Nick now and again like it had before.

His mind phased out, he lost focus on reality and existed blankly into nothing.

 _It's better this way…_

And then, with the exhale of his last breath, the hammer clicked into the closeness of his ear, but he didn't react, there was no flinching, no questions why nothing had happened, his mind wasn't in his body right now and he stood like that for some time, until realization came that he had failed to do such a simple thing. The cylinder was opened and he could see the round having moved to the next chamber during the cocking of the hammer. It got him to scoff in ire and to fix his mistake quickly, as he didn't want to waste any more time on this despicable world of cruelty and useless existence.

This time, this time he was going to make this right, his choice would lead him to a better world where existence wouldn't exist, thus no more pain, no more nothing… But when he put the gun at the same spot as before, he wasn't able to pull down the hammer, new emotions of old memories came back flooding in as a last rescue attempt of getting him to stop this madness. They were the love of his mother, the guiding words of a mammal he didn't know, defending him in the past from others who had sought him harm, the friendships in school that some lasted even after, that one being Tristan, the first relationships he had had, the shared moments of those close to him, the proclamation of romance by his closest friend and their plunge into the unknown, the belief that he could be more than the bias word fox that associated itself with many bad qualities.

His eyes glanced at Tristan's lifelessness and sought advice for what he was to do, didn't he want to join him, to go to the place so they could be together, undivided and whole… But that wouldn't be what Tristan would want for him, he'd want him to keep fighting and become who he was supposed to be in defiance to what society wanted him to be. The realizations got him to lower the gun and throw it on the side with a clank, while his paws rushed for his tearing eyes and legs moved closer to his belly in an attempt to get him to feel better, which wasn't working, but at least he wasn't trying to kill himself anymore.

In a furious instant, his eyes caught something blinking in the dark where the gun had been. It looked like an old integration of a smartphone that wasn't his. His paw reached bruisily and grabbed it. When he opened the screen, the wallpaper was set to be that of him and his dead friend in those moments of when he had no memory. His paw dropped the awful device with a thump, and he tried to scurry away. That got Tristan's head to fall from his lap without any hassle, but it went noticed by Nick, who immediately returned as if to express his apologies for what he had done.

But just as his old position returned, so did his sharpness and cunning found way into his inner breast pocket where he excavated a familiar piece of paper with crushed blueberry paint on it. Yet, he didn't care for the mess it had done in there, he was putting the number on the putrid smartphone and it began ringing. It continued doing so for a while until it dropped out, yet Nick didn't bat an eye and repeated the same again and again. This continued for more than necessary, but at last someone picked up with a sleepy and very annoyed tone of indignation.

" _Do you know the time? Stupid asshole!_ " came the feminine voice that followed a yawn.

"Tsomorrow, 8 PM. Shavanna Central, café Jesse/H."

" _Wha—the hell's is this?!_ "

"Tshe fox you gave blueberriesh to. Will you be there?"

" _Ahhh, it's you, what 'bout your approving friend?_ " When she asked that, Nick tried to hide his growl, but apparently it seeped through his voice like venom.

"We're talking damn bushineshs. Don't washte my fucking stime, _bat_!"

" _Okay, okay, fox! Ugh… you talking about today in the morning, oooorr?_ "

"Tomorrow, shend me a meshsage with your anshwer… you're fucking vesxing," Nick snapped and hung up, almost throwing his phone into the darkness if not for his recomposure. He felt so disgusted at himself for acting like this, but the distaste was coming more from what he had chosen to do, that he had chosen to go against what they with Tristan wanted to build. He chose to be what they pointed at him being without evidence. This was the only way he could skirt around and survive, everything else would feed onto his optimism and crumble like this very moment, a moment of abysmal heartache and fatal loneliness.

Loneliness that got his eyes yet again to sting and leak…

Loneliness that crozzled his heart…

Loneliness that now broke him apart…

All under the watchful eye of the headless statue, all under His scythe and demeaning approval black.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

\- _Hey, lots happened and time is flying like a fooker. Wish you an X-mas, New Years and whatever else was there._

\- _I've been experiencing cognitive dissonance, issues with the topic of selfishness, way of thinking, beliefs, understanding the environment around me, findings ways to cope with it all without being ignorant._

\- _I don't know if anyone has realized but my writing is like a glimpse into my soul. Not that I believe in souls but that's the way of expression, heh. I don't like people, I think many of them are stupid as fuck. Yes, readers dear, you aren't excluded either. Truth is, you don't really care about me, and I don't care about you. What we care about is what I can offer you and what you can offer me, everything else is a delusion. There's nothing wrong with that, our whole surroundings are based on such principles. Read about the Spotlight Effect._

\- _Funny thing about my anticipation for feedback of my story was that a part of me wanted acknowledgement for my ideas and my work. Recently, these past months, I've been working actively to disregard the quality that seeks acknowledgement from most because it is a tumour. A nasty, puss-filled, blackened and fester tumour. I can think for myself and conclude on thy own, I don't need someone's acceptance for my choice to commence! Funny thing is that I've mostly been like that the latter part of my life, but always felt uncertain about people's opinion, it was always there. Now, I actively seek such and spit on it, it doesn't make me question myself because I see it futile from a logical and objective POV._

\- _Coping with the cognitive dissonance, I'd go do crazy stuff which would be a danger to my life, it was the only way I could get my mind away from the noise inside my damn head that was created from the lie of a life I was living. Movies and other distractions had the same effect. I'm still exploring the issues of the mind and how one can find a sense of purpose that is in line with logic and uses selfishness as a contrast to making decisions in the objective reality._

\- _More to come, next chapter finishes this backstory. After that I'm going to try and finish AAC in a quicker manner and I've got several ideas on how to speed it up as I'm not a secret wealthy man who can keep this up forever. Don't worry, the fanfic goes on after AAC._

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	18. The Long Con

**The Long Con**

* * *

The void was rather calm, it was rather peaceful, it was pristine and undisturbed. But then, then came a sound, a sound that was familiar but unknown. It was a sound that managed to wobble the endless void and things started breaking apart. And again there was that same sound, it was deep and had an echo that resonated through the endless dark. That caused a light to appear somewhere from the seemingly infinite abyss, a light that was warm and at the same time… wet.

A loud bang came about from somewhere and the light kept coming closer and closer but something changed, there was this dampness and humidity that made the air very suffocating. The light began emitting heat that became uncomfortable and it was now just in front, shinning blindingly and brightly. It was just enough to have the desired effect.

Something cold fell on top of Judy's nose and she jolted awake from shock, huddling the sheets close to her chin and looking around frantically, while her nose wiggled about from the unwelcomed sensation that something or someone had caused. Her eyes felt heavy and very drained, and she wanted nothing more but to lay back and just doze off towards the clouds but the same motion happened again, something icy and wet fell on her ruffled head which now made her look up.

But she regretted doing so instantly because what was being on display made her groan defeatedly and plop her head onto the semi-comfortable cushions. The wall next to her bed as well as ceiling were dripping wet, the wallpapers that were on it were drenched in the liquid and seemed ready to fall as they were peeling from the wall itself. Her eyes closed and contemplations were being made if it would hurt to just doze for a few more minutes.

But there came that banging sound again and this time she understood what it was as it came from behind her door, underneath which there was a small stream of water that was going through the small amount of space. With some effort and barely audible murmuring, she jumped out of bed, feeling slight discomfort in her left leg but surprisingly it wasn't making her limp like yesterday.

She put the key inside the rust lock and unlocked it, but as she tried to open the worn door, it didn't budge, which got her eyebrows to huddle together and to try harder but the only thing that happened was the sound of cracking wood. That got her flustered and she put her leg onto the frame for support and pulled with all her might.

Just as she was about to yield to the door that was clearly beating her, a loud crack was heard, which made her lose balance, and she fell on the damp floor, with the door opening wildly and hitting the adjacent wall with a loud thud. Judy got up, grumbling, and after standing up, she glanced at her rear and could see that she was now pretty wet as well, with her tail being smeared in random directions, which got her to huff annoyingly and move her piercing gaze at the mammal, because of who she had to open the damn door.

It was the landlady of the establishment, who Judy had only seen once, when she first got to the apartment and received her keys. The landlady was an old armadillo with old-fashioned red skirt; teal dress; blue vest with flower prints; red half-moon glasses. She was just a tad taller than Judy and seemed to be looking at her apathetically, and seemed like she was in a hurry because she was moving her weight left and right. Judy tip-toed closer to her, careful not to step on the stream of water, and asked, "Yes, Mrs. Armadillo?"

The armadillo looked at her with narrowed eyes and after a moment, she began, "Look, dear. I'll have to ask you to leave for about a week because of a water leak," she explained plainly with a slightly annoyed tone, which Judy detected easily and the news got her badly surprised. She couldn't search for a new home now, there was no time for that because of her recent bad adventures that had transpired because of her sense of justice. This wasn't what was needed right now, it would only further complicated her already complicated situation.

So, she tried to argue her position, "But I don't have another place. Can't I stay here?" the doe tried to impose it as an innocent question but she did put it insistingly because backing off would mean more frustration and worries.

The landlady visibly rolled her eyes and asserted her position again, "It's impossible. Renovations and repairs need to be done in the damaged apartments, which includes yours."

Judy tried to find a reason for her to stay but all seemed dull, which was frustrating her and got her ears to fall behind her. But then came another question with the problem of a place to live. Money. All of her money was in Bunnyburrow and she had taken just a small amount, an amount that was going to be enough if nothing bad happened, which did. But it seemed that fate was against her and she was in a very problematic position, a position where she didn't have time for travels, her job demanding her utmost attention and it being just the beginning of the week.

That got her to confidently stare at the landlady, that hadn't changed position nor expression, and begin, "May I have a part of my deposit then? So I can find another place until then," she finished with a small smile, thinking that there wouldn't be any reason for the landlady to refuse her request, a request that was incredibly small and not even slightly out of place.

But it seemed that no such thing would happen even if the landlady was in the wrong. "That can't happen, dear," she deadpanned, which jolted slight anger in Judy's core. Why was everyone so hostile and greedy? Why couldn't they lend a paw and help out when one was in need?

"How am I supposed to pay when I can't? You aren't even letting me stay here! You are breaking my rights!" she exclaimed, hoping that she could persuade her into giving in but nothing of such was appearing to be.

The landlady sighed with annoyance and retorted, "Not my problem, dear. And read what you signed. I expect you to be gone until tomorrow," she explained and took her leave towards the neighbours without even bothering to listen to the doe's response. Judy quickly took a step forward but stopped mid-way because her brain was understanding just now what was said.

Indeed in the contract it was said that when an accident had happened and needed repair, money wouldn't be refunded. And she had signed that, knowing full well what that meant. There was no way around it, even as she tried to find a loophole with her knowledge of the law, nothing could be done because of that signature.

But a certain thought, a thought that had taken root recently, deep within her made her rethink. Maybe there was a way, another way. That got her to squeeze her paws into fists and try to step out of her swampy apartment but just as she was about to do so, realization hit her and her heart started hammering her ears.

 _Was I about to…_ She took a few steps back and huddled her paws close to her chest, feeling terrified at what was about to be done, at what she was thinking of doing. Her nose began twitching and she quickly pushed the door closed with a loud thud and got to her bed, nervousness and bafflement having overtaken her. Was she about to resort to intimidation so that what she wanted would be acknowledged and done?

Yes, she was about to do that and it was scaring her because the environment was beginning to shape as well as change her for the worse or better, and she didn't like that one bit. For the moment those intentions were harbored, she didn't feel like herself at all, which was the scariest thing of all.

Judy tried to brush the gnawing thoughts off and decided to get ready for work, not wanting to be late and get fired over such a simple thing. She glanced at the chair and desk, and saw that everything was neatly stacked and arranged, which she didn't remember doing at all. She got to her desk and saw a note under her faced-up badge, which she carefully pulled from beneath and it read 'Gotta learn how to resist the cuteness. Key is on the right side of the door- inside.' That got her to huff but she was actually amused, as she remembered the night before pretty clearly how he had given her support and care.

How she felt his pads and claws under her neck and stomach, his creamy fur on top her temple as well as his ticking vibrations when he would talk in a low but silky tone. And it was him who had started the intimacy, not her like before. She had even tried to pull away because of her not-so-good condition that she was in, yet he kept her close and she loved that. It was odd that the lustful thoughts were absent back then but there was something more than it, something way stronger, something pure. But she couldn't name it, at least not yet, thus she got to the door and picked up the key that was near the doorframe and hid it from where the tod had pulled it out, which managed to get her smile from the dumb memory of frustrated fox.

But something was off, something she didn't remember. It was before she had dozed off and it was very hazy. But seeing that nothing could be salvaged from the memory, shrugging it off was her best option and she checked her phone, which's alarm hadn't even ringed yet. That meant that there was plenty of time for her to get ready for work and she wasn't going to miss such a tempting opportunity.

* * *

Judy was was almost ready to head in for work as she snapped her duty belt around her slender waist and went on to sit on her desk. The shower she had taken was just pure bliss, and there was no need to wait for anyone, which was surprising yet appreciated. She had packed everything that needed packing, which wasn't much, just some clothes, toiletries, and some personal items of sentimental value.

Everything was on top of the drawer, waiting for her when she was to return from work and seek a temporary place to stay at. It was very inconvenient, something like this to happen so soon at such a time. It was like the cherry top of the troubles she had gone through, and it wasn't anything particularly satisfactory but she had to make due somehow.

While sitting on the wobbly wooden chair, she played with her fingers and just stared at nothing. Attempts were made again to remember the blank memory from the night before, it was like something very important to her but nothing came to mind, nothing at all. But then came a miserable growl from her belly, which got her to sigh heavily because she hadn't eaten the night before and hunger was now something she needed to fix, very soon. Just the thought of food made her mouth to salivate and her to decide to eat plentiful before work.

Just as she was about to cease the search for answers and begin her search for food, another knock came from behind her door, making her ear to spring into the air and aim its sights at the sound. That got her hopeful that the landlady had reconsidered and was going to help her somehow or at least let her stay, which would be greatly appreciated.

The door was opened with a hopeful smile, which was quickly smouldered because if was no one other than Bucky, with Pronk leaning against the dusty wall behind him. With two legs on both sides of the small river that flowed through the middle of the entrance, she stared at Bucky with anticipation as he seemed to be holding something in his hooves. It looked like a carton box but she couldn't see anything else in any form of answers.

Bucky eyed her room and sent her a sad smile. "You too, huh? With cheap rent come shitty apartments. The old hag kicking you as well?" he asked, and she was quick to answer with a dejected nod. "Damn… good luck then. I guess…"-the kudu touched his horns nervously-"take this." He passed her the carton box, which she took with puzzlement and then noticed that it was a carrot pizza.

Why were they giving her food? It wasn't like she wasn't thankful, she was incredibly as such but what was the reason? She peered strangely at the kudu and saw his slight smile. "It's from your foxy friend. You keep him close. He is a good mammal even if he is trying to appear otherwise," Bucky explained and took his leave which exposed Pronk behind him who was smirking a bit too confidently for her liking.

Pronk moved closer and leaned towards her. "Oh indeed"-his smirk intensified-"I heard that his kind have this thing called knot. Try it out," he whispered and took his leave with a parting wink but she didn't understand what he meant, thus she stood like The Colossus of Rhodes with a very perplexed expression and a carton box in paws.

 _Knot? What knot…_ She wondered but then came the unsatisfactory interruption in the sound of desperate growling and the sensation of drilling, which got her to close the door with a leg and head towards the desk. She quickly got comfortable and opened the box of delight, exposed the pizza that was with carrots and all other kinds of vegetables.

She was going to jump right in but saw a note that lay on the right corner of the box itself, which read 'If you are reading this, your neighbours are okay. If not, well then they could be hiding bodies in their fridge. Wasn't hard to guess which would be to your taste. Yours truly, Slick.' The note made her to snort and smile from the silly contents and she instantly began digging into the cold food. She didn't care of its condition, it was tasty, nevertheless.

After finishing the whole box, she felt full and leaned on the chair that scrunched in disagreement with both paws on her slightly enlarged belly. She removed some crumbs from her uniform and snatched her phone from the table, wanting to hear from Nick as well as thank him for everything he had done for her.

All of these were small gestures but they had built up and were starting to affect her greatly, the attraction starting to take deeper roots and beginning to get her to contemplate on the subject very intensely. He wasn't helping her with his good looks and teasing personality as well even if she didn't find it as such before she got to know him better.

She tried a few times but he didn't answer and she plopped her head onto the desk from dissatisfaction but managed to brush her cheek and ow from slight pain, pain that was nothing like yesterday but still present. She put her chin on one of her paws and stared at her pristine badge, a badge that she had longed so much about and now, now she was starting to doubt everything she had believed in.

Everything she had believed in appeared to be false, appeared to be defiled, appeared to be delusional. If she was to become a detective, first she had to lay low, turn a blind eye and waste more time in being unproductive, while taking it from everyone else. Most what Nick told her was true, no doubt about it as she went through it herself. That was chipping away at her optimism vigorously and the negativity began to persevere, which made her fear that she was beginning to become like them, that she was allowing herself to change. No longer was she by-the-textbook cop but she knew very well that this was just the first layer, the first barrier, the first hardship.

She moved her scorn at her phone and it changed to curiosity because of what Pronk had told her before he left. _About that knot…_ She quickly typed 'knot' in Zoogle and saw nothing else but actual knots, which wasn't making any sense and she figured that it wasn't what he had meant. _He did say his species…_ Her thoughts were crashed when she saw the time in the top right corner of her screen and she almost screeched from panic as she had only half an hour to get to the department. That got her to grab her badge, put on her kevlar vest and with a very quick jog, she exited her apartment.

* * *

Precinct One was in her sights and she checked her phone one more time to be sure that she wasn't going to be late and it seemed that there were five more minutes left, which was enough for her to get there. Getting to the front doors she stopped and looked at the lobby through the windows with an intensified heartbeat, it felt like her first time on her first day, which wasn't that long ago but still, the feeling was out of place.

She contemplated that it was the threat of losing her job just from a single minor mistake, thus she exhaled slowly and entered the intimidating building. She spotted Clawhauser on the front desk, who she hadn't seen in a while but as time was flying by, she didn't have time to have a chit-chat because everything depended on her accuracy and professionalism, which she wasn't lacking clearly.

Walking by the desk, she piped in cheerfully, "Hey, Clawhauser! Sorry but I don't have time…"

"Jud— wait… he—" was all she heard before entering the briefing room and meeting an aura of emptiness as all the chairs were without a single soul in them. She was bashed by puzzlement but that didn't stop her from finding a chair for her size, a chair that was comfortable. The clock behind the podium was showing 7:28am and there was still no one in sight, which was beginning to take up toll upon the doe's mind if she had missed something and was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But because of her persistence, she remained still and waited.

While waiting, she mused about where she was to go after work, knowing full well that she didn't have much and that no one would agree for her to pay for a few days or a week. In Bunnyburrow that would work but not in the big city, a city that now didn't seem so friendly as it did when she first arrived. If only she knew more mammals...

That thought managed to spring a certain red fox into the picture and now came the question if he could lend her a paw with this issue. _But he lives under a bridge… Or does he._ Him living in such conditions was very unexpected when she followed him and she never believed that he really lived there.

She guessed that he didn't want to show her his true home and that's why he bluffed it, yet he never said that it was his home, never. It made more sense as she thought about it and was just about to try and call him again when she saw that the clock had gone forward with 10 more minutes, which got her little heart to bash against her ribcage and she jumped off her seat as fast as lightning.

There was no time to waste and information was what she needed. And where she could find such was what she knew very well. With a fast jog, she got through the briefing room's door and climbed Clawhauser's desk, which managed to scare the cheetah from his fur and drop his donuts all over the floor. "Clawhauser, I'm sorry but I gotta—"

"Shshsh," he interjected and his calm expression managed to get her to listen closely without continuing with her rant. He swooped the fallen gems from the floor, put them in the box and moved the chair closer to the now-towering doe. "I wanted to tell you but you just move like a cheetah!" he unknowingly quipped ironically and she almost began laughing if the situation wasn't grim enough, thus she only smirked and waited for his next important words.

"Nevermind. Everybody is to continue with their usual duties. That's why there isn't going to be a briefing." That got the doe to let go of her breath she didn't know was holding and her shoulder's tension dissipated but then, then came the gnawing problem of what was she about to continue doing. Was she to continue cleaning? _Never._

"What about my duties? Can you tell me what I am to do?" she pleaded the cheetah and it seemed that he understood at what she was hinting, even if the incredible panic in his eyes was visible to her like the sky but then she saw someone who she didn't want to be near, Thane.

"Of course, sweetie. Just let me ch—"

He was interrupted by the white coyote who came by and grabbed him by the shoulder, attracting his attention and getting him to stop talking. "Go to records and find me more about this mammal," he ordered and passed him a small folder.

"But, Sir. Who will take over if I am not here? Just let me tell Ju—"

"I'll take over until you come back. Go," he ordered coldly and it seemed that the cheetah slumped down, visibly not wanting to argue with his superior and took his leave as quickly as his wide legs gave him the ability to do so. Judy was feeling incredible uncomfortableness being in the presence of the dangerous and corrupt mammal. She remembered what Nick had told her and wariness was embedded into her with roots having spread through her whole being.

She wasn't going to go anywhere with any of them, whatever the cost. Why did the coyote always looked so cold, so distant, yet so authoritative and dangerous. Who was he really was what she wanted to know and Nick hadn't told her anything interesting about him, nothing personal, only general information.

She waited without moving her gaze away from the coyote who hadn't even bothered to do the same as he walked over and sat on the seat that was slightly bigger for him as it was suited for the cheetah whose waistline was 4 times bigger than his. He played with his claws for a bit until he grabbed the desk and pulled himself closer to it. There was some rummagaging through paper and he ate a donut in the meantime as well, while not even bothering to even glance at the doe who was still standing on the desk with clenched fists and incredible frustration. She felt like her tongue was paralyzed even when she tried to pierce the suffocating silence that had overtaken the lobby.

Judy was just about to jump off the desk until she heard a cough and saw the coyote to be drumming his claws onto the wooden but filled with crumbs desk. "You are to go on patrol alone. You will be called back in the afternoon and you will be partnered up. Anything else will be corresponded through the radio," he explained with his shoulder facing her, as he took a key from underneath the desk and threw it at her, which she caught while her perplexion was boiling hot.

He knew her duties but Clawhauser knew them as well. Why was he telling her this and not him? Why did he send him to records? Something was fishy, very fishy and she wasn't about to just dive into the unknown, even if she was receiving a personal cruiser as well as a partner later on the day.

"Sir, I would like to se—"

"Want me to call Bogo?" he deadpanned and was now looking directly at her, dead-serious, which caught her off-guard and she took a hesitant step back that if it was bigger would've made her fall off the desk, with her paws closer to her chest because of the dreadful idea of going to that horrifying cubicle which was beginning to override whatever courage she had left within her. "Want me to tell him how you are here questioning his orders while cramming yourself with donuts?" She almost objected but reality was as such that no one would believe her even if she wasn't doing that. She didn't want to even hear the Chief but to see him? Nope. She had had enough of that for the month.

Reluctantly but finally, she surrendered and voiced, "Yes, Sir."

"Good. You are to patrol the west region of Savanna Central. You are not to engage until backup arrives"-he moved his burning eyes away from her and began reading something from a file-"dismissed."

With a jump off the desk, she headed towards the cruiser that was probably in front and there was this bubbling excitement, derived from that she was about to venture to actual work even if it was only patrolling. It actually sounded interesting and she wondered who was going to be her partner, probably someone new as well? That got more energy into her and she accidently put a bit too much pressure on her leg, which got her to groan from discomfort as the bruise was still there, just not as fierce as it was but still there, nevertheless.

As she got to the vehicle, finding it because the number was on the keys, she examined it closely and could see that it was for a mammal her size, her head not being under the roof of the car like with most cruisers she was faced with. It looked like Thane's a bit but it wasn't, she just knew it wasn't. Unlocking it, she jumped right in and began her examination, savoring everything inside into her memory.

It was in good condition and wasn't any different than Thane's. There seemed to be some stains on the seat next to the driver's but other than that, nothing else, nothing bad. She got comfortable, put her seatbelt on and grabbed the wheel. It had been some time since she last drove but she knew that her skills had not abandoned her. It was exhilarating to be in such a modern vehicle but there was this nervous feeling that it would be a bit hard for her to get used to it.

She put the key into the ignition and rotated it inwards, starting the engine with a roar that managed to send euphoric chills down her spine and flush her body for a second. The smile on her face grew and she tried to press on the clutch so she could change to reverse but her foot hit the polyester surface of the floor. That got her eyebrows to huddle together and her to look underneath. There wasn't a clutch. Where was the clutch? _What in the name of carrots…_

She looked over at the transmission stick and saw that it was different to those she had driven on the farm and her courses. There were 3 modes and it seemed that it was positioned on the mode in the middle, which meant that the other one was probably forward and the last reverse. She pushed it hesitantly forward, figuring that the R meant reverse and pressed on the gas with the engine starting to rumble but the car didn't budge and that frustrated her further until she saw that the pawbrake was pulled up and facepawed herself with a slight smile.

Pulling it down, she tried again by pushing the gas and now the car began moving very fluently and smoothly. It was nothing like she had driven in her life, it felt easy to use and very comfortable. She stopped and pushed the stick down to D, which wasn't telling her much but after pressing the gas, she figured that it probably meant drive.

After driving for a few minutes and following the GPS towards west Savanna Central, she got the hang of it and it was extremely easy. The steering wheel moved without need or brute strength, there was no need to change gears all the time. It was so simplified and easy to use but something was strange and out of place.

She actually felt preferring the manual one, having learned to drive on it and getting used to it. This felt unnatural sort of but she was to make due with what was at paw even if her left leg was trying from time to time to press on an imaginary clutch or for her to reach for the stick to change gears. But all in all, the cruiser was incredible as it held a lot of power, power that made her ears to ring in ecstasy and blood to tickle in her veins.

She entered the west region the district and began looking around for anything incospisious but everything seemed normal to her untrained eyes. Mammals were going around to their daily lives, traffic wasn't cramped and there seemed to be no violators which was perfectly content to the doe. The day looked promising but she actually begged for some action, any action that could get her to do good, to do her job.

She stopped at a traffic light and saw on the other sidewalk a small diverse crowd, who were holding signs and visibly shouting something which she couldn't hear because of the cruiser's soundproof interior. But she didn't need to hear what was being clearly yelled because the signs were enough for her to understand the unheard words. They were holding signs that were saying as such: 'Inter relationships are an act against nature!'; 'Inter relationships must be made illegal!'; 'Say NO to the mixing of blood!'

Judy gawped at what she was seeing. The surprise and shock at the existence of such bigotry and racism managing to get her blood to start getting hot and her mind to trail off. The loud honk behind her managed to get her out of her dazed state, notice that the light was green and press on the fuel. She drummed her fingers on the soft steering wheel and tried to understand but nothing made sense.

There was no sense in mammals wanting others to do as they bid them to do, but then again, wasn't the government doing the same? Yes, but this was a matter of personal choice and it wasn't harmful to anyone whereas if you chose to kill others or torture them, it was harmful and grotesque.

In her own views, she didn't see anything wrong with inters, having a bubbling attraction to a predator herself and not viewing it as anything unnatural but as something progressive and unique, something brave and exciting, something new. It didn't matter what the mammal was, it mattered who it was. Her eyes had experienced such racism in her hometown when she was younger but it was in the form of bullying, not far-right racism. But what was there to do, those were their views and while they weren't doing anything harmful but spewing hate, nothing really could be done, or couldn't it?

Those same thoughts entered her mind, thoughts of violence and intimidation in form of a tool, of a way. Why was she getting them again? What was going on with her? Was she unconsciously adopting the beliefs of criminals and the cruelty of power-hungry individuals? Were Nick's words affecting her so deep that her core was beginning to shift without her knowledge? That was actually highly probable because she didn't feel like enforcing the law as she felt like before. No more did she care about petite crimes and small fish. No. What mattered was to root out the tentacles of corruption, the ones that were solely responsible for the death and misery that was plaguing the city.

But she couldn't do that herself, help was required in the quantity of tons. She couldn't tackle the ladder when being on the bottom, alone and inexperienced. She had followed the law and had paid the price with dishonor, insults, physical and mental beatings. Why should she suffer and lose her opportunity to make a change when she could just lay low, scheme, and sabotage. Yet, that meant that she would go against everything she believed in and turn into something she despised.

The wheel cracked under her increasing grip and she gritted her teeth, feeling ashamed of her thoughts but seeing the truth in them if she was to continue down the road that was chosen. Did she really needed her integrity, her honor? Without it things would be so much easier, so much lighter. But without those qualities who would she be then? Definitely she wouldn't be Judy Hopps but someone else, someone else entirely. That was the one thing holding her back, her established-self. She just couldn't go against everything she was, probably not yet.

Something in her snapped and she reached for the radio, beginning to search for anything that would stop her thoughts of corruption, while knowing full well that she wasn't supposed to do that but she didn't care. Why was she to care when all she got when she did was pain and degradation? As Nick had told her 'Stop thinking about this preposterous law and live your life!' Those words resonated inside of her and finally, finally she let it go, a chunk from her past-self falling behind and leaving her for good or bad.

Maybe if she took things with Nick further, despair would be kept at bay behind solid iron bars and she would be able to persevere through all with his guidance and help. So what if he was a criminal by law, so what if he was a fox, so what if he was a cocky mammal? Those were characteristics that made Nick… well Nick. That was why she actually liked him.

The incredible strain she was feeling dissipated and lightness filled her, like the weight had just been cut off and somehow the stress became just a memory. She found a news channel and listened in, while looking left and right for any misdeeds being done by potential ruckus-makers. There seemed to be two mammals arguing with each other about the situation in the west very heatedly and by the sound of it, the situation in the studio seemed to be getting out of control.

"-s because our government wants to help? Ha! Do you have any idea how rich that country is with natural resources? And somehow we can't stay idle and let their government to deal with those rebels themselves? Bullshit!" countered the mammal with the deeper voice.

"But mammals are actually dying there by means that are banned and deemed destructive as well as inmammale. Surely what must be done is being done as of right now."

"No one ever does anything if there isn't going to be something in return, whether it is in physical or mental form. You are being blinded by your own ignorance and inexperience."

"That reason being the salvation of those that are suffering there!" was the other mammal's exclamation that was accompanied by a loud bang on wood.

"Ha! But of course. For the suffering mammals. The death of a mammal is a tragedy but the death of hundreds or thousands is just statistics. Don't you know that by now?"

"You are talking out of your ass!"

"Could we just cal—" the host tried to calm things down but nothing like that was going to happen as the yells were getting more and more hysterical.

"Wake up sheep! You are bein—"

"You racist BASTARD!"

"You are being misled and fed lies. Wake u—" The ruckus that was present became unbearable and noises of cracking wood as well as breaking of glass could be heard, accompanied by the yells and swears of the mammals that were now probably engaged in a physical quarrel.

Judy's ears were pointed curiously at the radio as her interest in the conversation had spiked but the sounds of fighting died down and then came the silence that was being pushed around by the humming of the engine. She almost changed the channel when a female voice began.

"We are sorry for the inconvenience. Things got a little heated… well maybe a lot… Nevermind. Moving on to other news, Gazelle's concert is near and will be hosted after 10 days in the stadium of southwest Savanna Central…" Judy ceased listening to the radio as she wanted to think upon the repulsing events that were happening in the west. The mammal with the deep voice wasn't saying lies, his words actually rang truth in them as she remembered history and the previous interventions of the country of USM with all of them being of strategical and economical benefits, not for the stop of misery and death.

Those revelations got her to frown deeply because she understood that she was just a pawn in holding up the order so those in power could play their diplomatic and war games. Never having thought about things from such an angle got her frustrated and freshly desperate in search for something to cling onto, her time with Nick making her more of a realist than an optimist, the truth being everywhere around her.

Was she really making the world a better place by solving petite crimes and patrolling the streets while thousands of innocent mammals suffered from artificial wars that could've been avoided easily. Her grasp upon reality was expanding rapidly and that was scaring her incredibly and she decided to just stop thinking because if she kept going maybe there wouldn't be a chance to turn back.

The cruiser was closing in an area where activity was bustling as it seemed that there was a big in-the-open bazar in the area. There was a slight traffic jam and she was to stop in slight annoyance but used the idle time to look around as there were now even more mammals to look over.

This part of town seemed to be filled with merchants and goods of all kinds with the buildings adopting an older style of stone foundations and pillars with stone roof tiles, which was something she had never seen and that managed to excite her curiosity. It had a medieval aura but the modernization was smouldering it quite savagely as the sidewalks were from stone slabs, the asphalt roads and different kinds of cars.

She continued slowly creeping her vehicle until she managed to spot a familiar red furry mammal with half auburn-limbs. It wasn't like there were other red foxes in the perimeter but that certain tod was standing out with his bad fashion sense and sunglasses. She could spot him in the most crowded place with that Hawaiian shirt of his and indigo tie. That got her to smirk and an idea to come forward because of her changing ways.

Finding a place to park her cruiser, she turned off the powerful engine and stared without focus into the nothingness. What she was about to do was breaking many rules of engagement as well as the orders that were given to her to only patrol. But there wasn't a particular order for her to do that on wheels and that was going to be her loophole.

And surprisingly, the nagging voice inside her head wasn't present nor had tried to interfere with her decision. She contemplated that because of what had happened to her and the banishment of her childish delusions, she could see more clearly and if there was honesty to be needed, she just didn't care.

A memory of how the Chief 'introduced' her with the similar words got her to smirk because she was feeling freedom as well as lightness in her body. Why should she give a damn if no one else did for her. If doing things her way could have a bigger impact then so be it, even if it involved unlawfulness.

She checked if everything was on her belt and after concluding it, jumped out of the car, locked it and began searching for a certain cocky-looking fox. But just after a few moments the radio inside the car started changing frenquencies and a hoarse and distorted voice began, "Officer Hopps, respond to a 10-67. Coordinates are Veznev street, block 1030, apartment 46. Backup will be sent shortly after." There was some silence and static that came from the receiver. "Officer Hopps. Confirm… Officer Hopps, do you read?"

But the grey bunny officer was now far away from earshot and into the bustling with mammals bazar without a worry in the world. Strange enough her portable radio didn't register anything even if it was on the same frequency as the cruiser's.

She decided to put the badge in her pocket so that she wouldn't stand out from the crowd even if she was wearing police blues. But knowing that no one would believe that she was an officer, remembering the bear's attitude in Happytown until she shot him with the taser, the decision was made without effort. The diverse crowd was easy to go through but with the presence of danger as the bigger mammals didn't seem to give much attention to where they were stepping, thus she was on guard. The many temporary stalls had all kinds of merchandise that included mostly everything a mammal would need and the other way around.

After going further into the marketplace, she managed to spot Nick who seemed to be heading towards a covered off part of the area. There were booths in the middle and two paths on both sides while in the corners were the permament shops. She followed Nick from a distance and was getting ready to try and scare him, because why not. The question remained if she was to jump on top of him, a question that made her slightly smile mischievously.

 _He really has rubbed off on me…_ Her train of thought crashed violently as a certain smell intruded into her nose sharply and got her to cough because her throat all of a sudden felt dry. It wasn't the smell of rot or something decaying, yet it was managing to quirk her up as it had a tinge of death in it, the scent of blood. That got her to look around herself and what she saw managed to send shivers with instinctive fear within her, getting her to take a few steps back with a twitching nose and huddled paws to her chest that was moving up and down rather fast.

It was meat. A lot of meat that was sprawled onto the stalls' crates. She was in the predator part of the market.

The smell of blood and death was making her mind go crazy because it was strong and fresh, unlike the smell of decay which wasn't something new to her, having lived on a farm and having worked on other farms that had farm animals that would, from time to time, die from natural or other means. But she had never been in a place where so much meat was in one place. The aroma was everywhere in the enclosed space, being a replacement for oxygen, oxygen she now craved for. She knew that predators even liked it but not her, not even close because of the distortion it was causing within her mind.

Not being a predator meant that she was attracting a lot of attention as most of those that passed by her, gave strange looks, while the bystanders started at her curiously.

The adrenaline was everywhere within her, instinct had almost reached its peak and had replaced rationality. She was frozen in a time warp, wanting to flee but at the same time managing to not lose full control of herself. It was like when she was with Nick but ten time worse as now those same ancient tools were on overdrive and incapability to chase them away had a big shadow over her.

Control and relaxation was needed in order for her to seize the reins and stop her ludicrous behavior. But how could she control her breathing when all she breathed was the sharp smell of iron. The fight was being lost and a step was taken back, her heart beating with incredible speed and strength. Panic was starting to kick in and she was consciously losing it until, until someone bumped into her and managed to bring back some part of herself back to the surface.

"The carrots are that way, cuty," taunted a brown wolverine, slightly taller than her with a grin that exposed his front canines that were kinda yellow.

The mocking tone and use of the prohibited word managed to break the heavy chains that were all around her, and she almost retorted as her scorn was increasing but stopped herself because of the delightful feeling of control. It was strange how anger always managed to bring her back when she was feeling incredibly nervous or scared. Maybe it was like that with everyone else.

Not having time to think upon it, she scoffed and ran at the direction she last remembered Nick moving towards, while one of her sleeves was in front of her over-energized nose as to block some of the odor that wasn't to her liking, not at all.

With ferocity and courage, she pressed on while catching glimpses from predators that were her size, while the bigger ones weren't bothering to look down, typical. She hugged herself, her breath being visible on every exhale, as the temperatures seemed to be getting lower, definitely to preserve the meat from spoiling, as she pressed on with drooped ears and increasing shivers.

With the thinning of the crowd, the area became a little more open and that gave her the opportunity to spot the fast and slippery red vulpine who was talking with a small fox near a stand with more meat. _Do they sell anything else here?_ The little fox was familiar with her remembrance telling her that he must've been Finnick, the toddler in elephant costume and the fox of high decibels.

The idea to scare Nick was abandoned instantly, and she crept slowly, while trying to hide herself from sight, wanting to overhear what they were talking about even if it would be not very ethical while she was on duty. But hey, all she got for following the rules was a beating and emotional mental conflict, why shy away and halt her learning curve.

"Grab it dickhead." The fennec motioned to Nick at the stand owner's paw, as he was holding his food. But because the fennec was short, that meant that he couldn't do that himself.

"Grow up," the red tod shot back but quickly put both his paws up in surrender and grabbed the plastic bag that had a big slice of red meat in it, which got the red vulpine's mouth to water, and look at the fennec with puppy eyes. "Just a lick?"

Judy could see the visible annoyance that was etched on the small vulpine's face but it seemed that he actually relented with a roll of his eyes. "Whatever. I'm cookin it anyway." The reynard smirked and quickly pushed his muzzle into the transparent bag with sniff that had accompanied almost instantly. Then she saw him lick the bare piece of tangible flesh which very surprisingly didn't stir any fear, disgust, or repulsion from her part, only curiosity as she observed both mammals, or more like only one.

He pulled away and munched a few times, followed by an amused chuckle. "It's croc alright."

The fennec growled and grabbed the bag with force, while Judy kept creeping closer towards them. "No shit. I fuckin hope ya didn't ruin it with yo diseased tongue."

She saw the red tod's mouth to open but stopped and he began rapidly sniffing, while turning towards her, which got her to jolt in dread and hide behind the nearby stand, as she didn't want to be seen at a place like this. Not even an honest answer was going to save her butt if she was spotted. Peeking a bit, she observed that now Nick had black polarized sunglasses on, while looking left and right, and exhaled from relief that he hadn't caught sight of her. But her scent had almost given her away, being too close to the fox who was familiar with her presence, maybe quite a lot.

"You are just jealous," Nick returned slyly and began walking with paws in the pockets of his khakis pants and a confident gait, while Finnick grumbled and followed suit with his tail almost touching the cold ground. That was her que to do the same but more careful as to not get into range of that sensitive nose of his.

But just as she was to do so, the stand owner came from the side and pried, "You lost bunny? Or just hungry," she finished with a giggle and that got the doe to turn around and notice a female hyena, who was holding a butchers knife at her direction, as well as a white apron, but stained with red, a bit too stained.

That got the doe to smile nervously as well as awkwardly, while reaching towards her weapons because the sight was just straight out of a horror movie. "No-no. Just…. looking around!" the doe blurted as she was slowly retreating backwards.

"You sure?"-the hyena's grin became wild-"try everything, right?" she teased and began shuffling towards her, as if Judy was going to be the next meal for the day.

"Eeeeeepp!" the doe squeaked and legged it, terrified at what she was seeing, with panic making her overthink the situation that was definitely not as such as it was perceived to be.

The hyena watched the mortified doe run away and snickered, with narrowed eyebrows. "Eh. Her loss." She cleaned the soaked in blood cleaver onto her apron and went behind her stand with giggles that were increasing in vibrance with every passing second.

Judy managed to escape her supposable and fictional doom as well as spot the two foxes that seemed to be heading towards a more secluded area of the enclosed marketplace. _Dumb bunny instincts._

Attempt after attempt was made to get herself into control because her heart was just pounding in her ears as if it was going to escape from them. Both foxes stopped close to a stone wall and began talking to which she managed to hide behind several crates and get within hearing range, while thanking the Carrot Lord for her incredible gift, and peeked a bit, wanting to notice the little details as well.

Nick looked around as well as at her direction, which got her to duck behind instantly with tingling fear in her chest, and was baffled at the times he almost caught her spying on him. _Does he have paranoia or a 6th sense?_

She heard a heavy sigh and peeked again, seeing the red tod's back and a part of the fennec's body, as he seemed to be leaning against the old wall. She noticed Nick to poke his shoulder with his claw and get it swapped away harshly almost instantly after which he rubbed the stricken area gently.

"Okay assfucker! I get it. Don't fuckin touch me," Finnick barked frustratingly and pawed his face with a grunt. "What we gonna do with that bunny of yo's?"

The question managed to get her to move her head closer as it was something strange for her to hear after everything that had happened. But it wasn't Nick who had initiated the question so she didn't think about it, much.

"Don't worry, Fin. She's all good. A good mammal as well, one of a kind!" he began with vigor and she lightly smiled, liking to see him say the same things he had told her, while not around him. It made her heart to skip a beat as well, warming her up in the cold place that had began its onslaught upon her body. "She'll be perfect. I've got her all ready and she trusts me," he reassured the small fox and laughed a bit harshly.

The words made the doe's nose to wiggle and breath to become a bit labored. What was he talking about? What was she ready about and why was she feeling sharp and heavy stones inside of her guts all of a sudden. She needed to listen, needed to understand and not get to conclusions before that.

"How can ya be so sure ya fuckin fraud!"

The red tod snickered. "Because she is a dumb and naïve bunny, Fin! She will believe anything I tell her now"-his tail wagged happily-"she actually thinks that I care for her, hah! Easiest scam in my whole life." The horrific words pierced her pacing heart and squeezed it so hard that the pain made her to grunt lightly as shock and agony were beginning to overtake her.

 _No-no… he must be joking. He is joking!_ She tried to reassure herself as the coldness began its advance upon her blood and her body started shivering, the thoughts of betrayal and manipulation beginning to sting like salt on a wound and she couldn't keep those ideas at bay no more, the seed of doubt having been now planted inside of her while the roots grew strong with each passing moment.

Never would've she thought that Nick was using her because he simply wasn't. Even as she tried to find a situation where he was, he wasn't. All he had done was put himself on the line, showing her the truth and trying to help her go through unscarred. But then, why did he just say those things. What was he talking about? Where was that coming from? She needed to understand… she needed to understand.

"What fuckin scam? Ya tryin to fuck her? Ya prey sucker," the fennec shot back and laughed maliciously while Nick looked him with disapproval. Judy felt a blush starting to crawl under her skin and some warmth came back into her freezing veins. Nothing was answered yet but it seemed that the red tod was indeed having some hidden agenda of his, yet, nothing made any sense to her, nothing.

She saw Nick move his fingers restlessly and tail to fall slightly to the ground but then, all of a sudden it went up and he began with enthusiasm, "Hah! I mean no but if that comes to play, I won't refuse free service." He clasped his paws together while Judy was feeling mortification and now repulsion. Was she just some item, some property to him? Why was he saying those things? He never showed this disgusting side of his but then again, he was a hustler. Maybe he was incredibly good and she was just his next mark, maybe he indeed wanted to try her. Being honest with herself, she would've been interested but not anymore, not after what was said and it seemed that more was coming.

"It's all about the long run, Fin. She can aquire money, a position in the ZPD, or who knows what else! And I will be there, pulling the strings and having her whole trust in me which just gives us endless possibilities. Imagine what more we can do if we had an insider in law enforcement!" The red vulpine swooshed his tail left and right in amusement. "Want to know how I called this?"

The fennec grunted dissaporvingly but in the end answered, "What?"

"The Long… Con!" he revealed with his two paws in the air and his trademark smirk, while the doe was now behind the crate with huddled together legs, head plopped on top of them and glistering lavenders. Finding out that the mammal you became so attached to, so attracted to was just being there for you because after some time he could use you like a napkin and then throw you out was just heartwrenching, it was awful and unfair. Her clothes felt tight, her fur was suffocating her skin, her lungs were on fire and with every inhale they burned and clogged with intensity.

That got her to hug herself even more desperately as if to try and stifle the emotional breakdown she was going through and the rearranging of her beliefs and established grounds. The mind was a battleground, the rational side fighting with the emotional that was attempting to hold its ground and not accept the fact that Nick had betrayed her, yet the war raged on and the tides were in favor of rationality. Judy shivered and sobbed quietly in the comfort of herself, comfort that squirmed out memories of Nick from last night and how blissful she had felt, how appreciated and cared for.

But that made it worse, it made it excruciatingly painful and she grabbed the fur on her head from the deepened despair and unwant to accept the truth, the truth that was laid bare before her eyes and ears. Her limbs started feeling numb as the cold had persevered and was now advancing towards her core, trying to smoulder the furnace of life within her, a furnace that was throbbing relentlessly while each beat caused pain in every nerve ending, making her feel as if her body was forsaking her.

She really believed in him because he had showed her his true self, his true self that probably was just a façade to his true intentions. He did tell her that he was a two-faced mammal once but it did sound just like his usual jokes. The pit in her stomach became deeper and the hurt was like nothing experienced before, worse even than the physical she went through. But now it made more sense to her, the words of the mammal from the radio that no one ever does anything if there is nothing in return were striking her mind viciously and increasing her anxiety.

Some part of her optimisim just hoped that he would say that he was just joking and that everything was the other way around. But nothing like that was happening and the pit of despair was deepening inside of her, getting her to squirm in mental agony as the truth was like an unwanted scar. It was there even if you didn't want it and nothing could scrub it away anymore, only time. The worst part was that the care she received from him was so delightful and the attatchment had grown so strong and resilient that it was hard to sever it, incredibly hard. But it had to be done, if she was to move on that bond needed to be destroyed or it could cost her dearly in the future.

With her sleeve, she removed the moisture from her eyes and exhaled slowly and looked at her paws. All of a sudden all the sadness, fear and hopelessness vanished from her. The new page was opened and apathy entered her as control was achieved even if it wasn't permament, it was enough for her to move on. The battle was over, the truth had been accepted in its entirety and purity, getting her broken heart to reduce its intensity and her breath to calm itself down.

"Maybe in another life," she mumbled quietly to herself and smiled hopefully but now there was a new goal in mind, that goal being her promise to the red vulpine that she had made that day after the Jumbo-pop confrontation. Determination to get him for his betrayal was now burning inside her core with slight stings of her still-present but weakening attachment.

She wouldn't forget his tenderness and promising words, his loving and real side that she knew was an actual part of him, a part he used to gain the trust of others and then mold it against them. Maybe he was a victim of his environment but that didn't give him the excuse to toy around with other's feelings and use them as he wished.

That wasn't going to happen with her if she could do something about it.

Never.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

\- No. It didn't take me a month to write this. If it did it probably would've been pretty lengthy. The thing is, when you are occupied for some time and push away your story that you've been writing, the details fade away from one's primitive memory. That's what happened and I had to do a revision with a lot of editing throughout it as I saw many ways to improve the already written. Enjoy and expect more to come. Things are going down the hill soon enough.

\- **Music while writing:** _Eisbrecher - Was ist hier los?_

\- **Latest edit:**

\- **Tumblr:** _markovas_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_


	19. In Pursuit of the Truth

**In Pursuit of the Truth**

* * *

Emotions can be a great tool, a tool that gives you the opportunity to understand how others feel while molding your whole being. They give you purpose because without them things would be bland and tasteless. They are essential and unconditionally required in order for one to function normally.

Yet, they are an obstruction when things need to be done, when things need to be accepted and understood. They are a curtain in front of one's eyes, a curtain that could lead them astray onto paths unknown from which the possibility of a return is sometimes impossible, absurd and futile.

Emotions make one weak, they make them dependant and bias towards everything. That has its implications with family, love, duty and everything that one can get attached to. If the emotions are persevering within the mind and body, one would always choose to protect those that he values or loves no matter what they have done or are about to do.

But sometimes, those that are the attribute of attachment understand the concept and take advantage of one's emotions, using them in order for their own benefit, for their own need.

Selfishness.

That is when rationality kicks in, its polar opposite. That is when the balance between impulsiveness and logic needs to happen and to be enforced. If not, things may tend to get worse in one shape or another. They may lead to actions that would be impossible to erase, choices without reversal, guilt without an end.

One always needs the other. They can't exist without one another or there would be chaos. There needs to be balance in order for there to be serenity.

Judy was in the middle of that tranquility but her link to Nick was still too strong which still gnawed inside of her while straining her very existence. But she had accepted the truth which was the hard part to do. There was nothing else to think about anymore, time would take its course and would fix her. It was good that she had caught on so early because if not, she didn't know if she would've been able to take it like now.

She sighed sadly and shook her head decisively. There was work to be done. Peeking her head slightly above the crate and positioning her ears tactically, she began to listen further with a scowl. The two vulpines were still on the same spot but Nick seemed to have removed his sunglasses. He started laughing madly and the fennec growled with scorn.

"Okay, okay!"-the red tod removed some moisture from his eyes-"what do you call a three-humped camel?" he vibrantly asked the small fox to which the fennec dropped the bag he was holding with a widely opened mouth.

"ENOUGH OF YO SHIT!" he yelled desperately and took a step forward with clenched fists to which Nick flinched and took a few backwards while waving his paws in front as a form of surrender.

Judy smirked from the thought that the fennec would do justice by her while something else was making her limbs to shiver tensely as a form of readiness to dash forward and help her supposed friend. She fended the protective musings instantly, not wanting them to overpower her decisions and keep her away from the clarity she wanted to so badly achieve.

"Okay… geez, pal. Take your anger pills—" Nick shot quietly while his ears fell as well as his tail and his look became downcast.

"Last warnin, Wilde. And I don't need pills ya fuckin bitch!" the fennec interjected and crossed his arms while his gaze moved somewhere else as inaudible grumbles escaped his lips. Nick was acting incredible odd, as his last sentence seemed to sound if he was hurt by his friends yell but that didn't make a drop of sense. He was one that was not easily agitated or insulted, she knew and had experienced the annoying tod. But now, now he looked vulnerable.

But that vulnerableness persevered for only a bit as he started again normally, "You got what I asked you for?"

The fennec rolled his eyes, leaned against the cold wall and put his paws in his pockets. "Spot 4, everythin is in there. Why do ya even need that shit?"

"Tut-tut-tut. The less you know the better!" the reynard deadpanned and motioned a gunshot with his paw towards the fennec, who growled as he flipped him the bird. "You are a little squirt, you know that?"

"Go fuck yoself." Finnick grabbed his nylon bag that was now filled with blood on the bottom and began walking away with tensed shoulders. "Have fun puttin those in yo ass."

"Love you too, buddy!" Nick cheerfully shouted at his friend who rounded a corner and was now out of sight. Judy's mind was at disorder as the bafflement was just too strong. What the hell had just happened. She shook her head in order to abandon the search for the visibly futile answers and eyed the red tod who now had his phone close to his ear and was talking. The good thing was that she could still hear him even if he had lowered his voice considerably.

"I have what you asked me of… You sure?" He scratched his chin in confusion. "Sure I'll be there in 10 minutes because I am in the area… Great! Till then." He hung up and grabbed the top of his muzzle, chuckling while smoothing out his fur before his nose.

"Too easy," he whispered but the doe managed to catch the rogue words that had attempted to avoid her ears and was now very much interested in what Nick was going to do in 10 minutes. He was cryptically and plainly talking which meant that he was going to do something that needed privacy. Her heart became faster at the realization that an opportunity arose so quickly for her to tackle the backstabbing fox, to return him the favor.

Nick looked around sloppily and began slothing towards the exit of the bazar. With a huff of determination she began her quest of revenge while sneaking from stand to stand and keeping her distance from the scent-sensitive vulpine. If she was caught before he reached his destination, there wouldn't be anything she could frame him for. There was the doubt that he would have anything illegal to where he was heading. He was Nick after all, too crafty for his own good. But that didn't falter her resolve, only strengthened it as she pressed on with ferocity.

They got to the prey part of the market and it became harder to maneuver as there were way more mammals there. That meant that if she was to keep up, the distance between them had to be reduced and that was what she did. Nick was being extremely agile, maneuvering around big and mammals of his size with ease and she expected no less of him, as he had lived on the streets for so long. She didn't have a problem in doing the same but it wasn't as smooth and effortless which slightly frustrated her nose.

But that didn't mean that mistakes didn't happen as he accidently bumped into a male boar, who was almost his size, to which the mammal yelled hatefully, "You trying to pickpocket me you filthy fox?!" while Nick swiftly tip-toed around, shook his head with a chuckle, and with undervalue waved the backside of his paw upwards a few times as to tell the mammal to not bother him.

Judy almost retorted because of her animosity towards prejudice but clamped her mouth shut and all that was heard was a rumble that quickly dissipated inside her throat. How could Nick just take it and walk away without even the slightest concern, she couldn't grasp it, she couldn't understand. The want to protect him from the bigots brought back the whirlwind of emotions inside of her stomach and she felt light-headed, the abundance of fresh oxygen and lack of metallic blood not helping her much, surprisingly. This was like a sickness or even worse as it was bringing fatigue within her in large quantities. He indeed was a victim of his environment, he didn't deserve such attitude, such hateful and despicable vileness.

But he was right all along. Society wasn't that great at all as there was the living example in front of her as well as the protesters she saw previously while driving which just solidified the point. She wanted to walk over to the bias mammal and confront him but then again, wasn't the boar right? Nick had turned out to be just what society had labeled him as such, a shifty, backstabbing and cunning fox. There was still that hope that it was all just a big lie within a lie but the odds were miniscule, the odds were almost non-existent. But, hope still was embedded inside of her, even if it was incredibly weak and undesirable.

They exited the bazar and the wide smile of the sun reached the doe's exhausted from coldness body. She felt rejuvenation and warmth which made her smile and close her eyelids because of the euphoria that had entered her bloodstream but that got her to lose track of Nick. She opened her eyes and they widely-widened instantly as the red fox was nowhere to be seen.

The protective moisture from her lilacs disappeared and soreness began creeping around the outer layer of her windows of vision, while they began feeling uncomfortably itchy as well as stingy, making her to forcibly blink a few times as to get rid of the unwelcomed sensation that had been caused by the shock, the shock that made her to utter desperately, "No…"

With a wild dash towards the last known location she had seen him, she sprinted as if her life depended on it. Renewed with energy and motivation, she managed to get close to an alley that lead to an enclosed park with buildings all around. She managed to spot an auburn-tipped tail just around the corner of that alley, and the stress that had filled her muscles left her body in the shape of excess heat, reducing the accumulated intensity.

Creeping closer to the edge of the corner, she peeped cautiously and managed to spot him sitting on a bench which was close to a trash can. The park had a several trees, trees that were hiding Nick under the thick shadows they were casting with their giant-healthy crows; a playground and quite some benches for sitting while the flats were creating a wall around it with two visible exits. The one being where she was now and the other on the other side of the small peacefully-secluded parcel.

Judy decided to wait and watch for the fox's next move and it wasn't long until he sat up and began scrutinizing the environment, making her to hide from the jolt of anxiety, derived from the thought that she was to be caught by his sharp jades. Breathing heavily, she sighed with a small smile and poked out her small head blindly.

The gamble paid off as Nick just pulled out a medium bag with a strap. He moved the bag up and down, probably trying to estimate its weight, and as he was done, his tail wagged happily as he put the strap on his shoulder, looked around and began walking normally towards the other alley.

There were no mammals in the park, neither at the flats' windows which was incredibly peculiar as there was always at least some old mammal standing guard and watching from a half-cleaned window or leaning slightly outside with curiosity. But not today. She trekked carefully towards the other alley and knew that she should hurry as to not let him evade her even if she was certain that he had no clue that he was being followed by a disappointed and crestfallen bunny.

Reaching the alley's corner, she repeated the motions from before and her eyebrows narrowed together at what she saw. The alley was a dead end and there was only one door that lead towards the flat that she was currently hugging its wall. There was a big garbage container and several dirty trash cans with filthiness scattered all around the ground. The smell of rotten food invaded her nostrils and repulsion started climbing up her throat but she kept her composure and examined Nick who was just leaning against the red-bricked wall and seemed to be playing with his obsidian claws with visible disinterest.

She remembered when he had told her how he never made the same mistake again after he had put his stand in an alley the same as this and had almost lost his life to the local rhino mobster. Had he lied to her that as well? There was that possibility. That got her to wonder if anything that he had told her was true at all but her musings were crashed when she saw him open his pack and pull out a small plastic bag with a red zip lock. It was filled with white round pills and her ears would've sprung from shock if she hadn't grabbed to restrain them. The shock was so great that she hadn't registered that she was gawking at him.

 _You shifty liar!_ She bared her teeth like a predator as her hot blood flushed her entire body, making it restless at the realization of what Nick was doing. There were these light rumbles that died in her throat as she fumed her frustration in and out while wiggling her fingers around and re-adjusting her wrist-pads that were feeling uncomfortable from the excess heat that was being trapped because of their skin-toned design.

She wanted to jump in and detain him but that would be an incredible mistake from her part. There was no backup and there was no telling what Nick had hid from her. She was alone with a mammal she thought she knew, a mammal that now seemed dangerous to her, yet that same emotional part was trying to contradict everything, telling her that it was just Nick, harmless and good deep within.

The thoughts made her eyes to sting harshly yet again and she pushed the gnawing irritations away with all her might. He was a clever fox and he wouldn't have made the mistake to bring illegal drugs with him in large quantities but what she saw next made her speechless. When the red vulpine cached the plastic bag, while opening his medium pack, she could visible see many more inside, probably hundreds.

He had crossed the threshold. The doubt was replaced with certainty as the quantity, place and secrecy was just too obvious to what was going on. She could call for backup but her want to solve her personal problem herself blocked off that mundane choice and she began to form a plan within her little head.

It would be best to first detain Nick and wait for the other mammal as to get him as well because it would be impossible for her to apprehend two perps that are to be running away from her. Then came the issue how she should approach her 'friend' and use his state of surprise and disinformation to her advantage.

She wanted to make him surrender and not use her weapons, definitely not her tranquilizer as she needed him to be awake so she could understand why he had done what he had. But if it came to life and death, she knew that it had to be used. Therefor the taser sounded like the opportune tool for her job and without wasting any more time, she calmed herself down, pinched the space between her nose and faked the most radiant smile she could muster but not before checking her equipment.

With a confident gait and a spring in her step, she started walking towards the dead-end and began to hum something from memory. Seeing that Nick had spotted her with his ears against his skull and gawking expression, she stopped slowly with her paws huddled close to her chest and stared at him for a few moments.

"Nick!" she shouted jovially and closed the distance between them, halting just a meter away from him, and his expression turned from surprised to outright panicked which was giving him away too much. _So much for your hustling abilities…_

"Carrots… what are you doing here…" he returned nervously while looking around and scratching the fur behind his neck. There were some annoying flies that were trying to land on his face and ears but his paw was shooing them away, yet they were visibly adding further to his frustration. She had cornered him badly and seeing him like that made her actually excited as it was now him being scared from telling the truth, not her. But when she saw the annoying flies, the memory when he and her were in the van as her nose was violated by one of them pierced her memory which was aiding further in the wobbling of her self-calm.

"Just patrolling. What about you?" she probed and tilted her head but without losing her vibrant smile of hers while the mask was cracking slightly on the edges.

"Guess… the same?" That got her almost to snort, because seeing him so hesitant was rare yet his retorts always held that condition of restraint and lack of information. _You and your tongue._ But there was no more time to waste, she had to detain him or else his friend would come and put her in the dreaded crossroads that she was attempting to avoid.

"Great! What's in the bag?" she smashed the last nail in the coffin and there was now visible sweat on the tod's face, while his eyes darted around for an exit.

But just like that, his demeanor changed and he instantly calmed down, his mortification now replaced by a grin that made her strained eyes to twitch. "Nothing that concerns you, Fluff."

But she didn't frown, quite the opposite as she closed the distance between them in an instant and was now almost touching him with her body. Strangely enough there was no fear, only the feeling of comfort and his likeable scent, which bashed her heart around and tried to get her unstable. His body heat was reflecting onto her and that was bringing the recent memories of his embrace and puffy fur that she had felt and touched. She almost lost her confident façade but with pure determination held herself together and managed to keep the screeching from the pressure chain intact.

"Please?" she begged, letting one of her ears to droop while the other bent itself forward and hit the fox's belly. His expression turned incredibly serious and he took a step back.

"No," he deadpanned, took his phone out and put it back in swiftly. "I gotta go."

He wanted to get away and it was just plainly obvious that he was feeling uncomfortable and insecure. "Where?" she probed innocently with small hints of authority but the bubbling emotional instability was starting to take its toll on her.

"Something came up," he retorted plainly and glanced just for a moment at her with caution.

"Tell me!" she more like demanded as her voice cracked under the increasing pressure as he was just too close to her and even if the vileness was exposed, the feelings were still rooted deep, pressuring her stability with every attempt of pulling them out, attempts that were failing and failing.

"I'll tell you tonight, okay? I promise." The last word just did it for her, breaking her resolve and bringing that animosity at his lies to a point where it was impossible for her to hide her true feelings and intentions. Her blood began filling with the poison of anger, anxiety and stress which clouded her thinking and the dam just cracked after having been leaking for quite some time. It was just inevitable and she knew it, things like this were never easy to be overcome in just a day.

Nick tried to move past her but she got in his path instantly and her voice cracked under the pressure of the recently-growing desperation. "You'll tell me now!" she outright ordered and pointed a shivering finger at him while her breath felt heavy as well as ears.

She saw his bafflement but as the emotions overwhelmed, so did her control, and her nose just exploded as well as her foot, getting her to grind her teeth and turn around, trying to bring back some composure because she wouldn't be able to deal with him in such a state. Her skin felt as if fire ants were biting every cell of it, getting her uncomfortableness to rocket while she scratched her arms and torso out of view of the extremely confused fox who stood still with an opened mouth.

"Wh-wh—"Nick slowly crept to the doe and stopped close to her but there was no reaction from her part, just her paws moving around tightly. "Judy are you oka—" Nick reached for her and gently touched her tensed shoulder. That got her to flinch and for a moment she asked herself if things couldn't continue as they were and if she could just forget that this had ever happened. Very short contemplations began upon that choice, a choice that seemed so sweet and reasonable from first glance and favourable as well.

But that was impossible and even if she felt comfort from his paw on her shoulder, a paw that had nurtured her yesterday, there was work to be done, thus she immediately swapped it away harshly and punched him with all her might in his underbelly. Her fist collided with the vulnerable area and pushed inwards, making the tod's muscles to immediately tense and harden, yet the blow pierced him hard, pushing the air out of his lungs, thus getting him to arch forward and then to stumble back with a yelp and fall on the ground as pained groans escaped his curled lips while his paws clenched his belly desperately.

Judy knew from experience how such a blow felt, her first time in the sparring ring being when she had to go through one that had gotten her curled into a ball, groaning and hissing from pain for quite some time. It was extremely agonizing as that region of the body was weak and a hard hit would always bring forth paralyzing agony to the victim. Later on her tolerance became better but never enough so she had to grasp how to avoid such hits, learning that taking them wouldn't work in her favour at all as she wasn't a bulky mammal.

Yet, Nick didn't remain for long on the ground as he brought himself to his feet after collecting his breath, which managed to surprise her immensely and get her to the conclusion that this definitely wasn't his first time getting punched in such a way, thus stinging was felt inside her heart and almost got her to clench her kevlar-protected chest but her attention was grabbed when the tod asked while holding his throbbing belly. "W-w-what… what the hell was that?!" He squeezed the spot she had hit him on and arched himself forward as a few more groans escaped his curled lips. "I get it that yesterday was a bad day… But come on!"

This was no time for feelings, thus she let the poisonous anger to fill her up. "Shut up!" She took a defensive stance with a paw close to her utility belt as she was readying herself for the final confrontation that would end this emotional rollercoaster, at least for a bit. "Open the bag, NOW!"

Nick became wide-eyed, visibly understanding where this was heading to, and did the same as her while looking around with fear in his terrified jades. "Fluff, stop this. You aren't feeling well."

She had had enough of this, her emotions were raging inside and she couldn't take it anymore. Thus she drew her taser from her holster and pointed it towards Nick who took a few steps back and instantly put both his paws in the air while his eyebrows went up.

"Last warning! Open it, Wilde!" she hissed authoritatively, squeezing the weapon harder and pushing her finger inwards onto the plastic trigger that surprisingly felt heavy because of her incredible unwant to hurt the reynard further.

"Okay, okay…" he relented and slowly removed the strap from his back and reached for the zipper. She was eyeing him with incredible focus as her weapon was aimed directly at his puffy chest. The trigger felt even heavier as her thoughts were plagued with scenarios where something would go wrong.

He began opening it but then, in just a blink of an eye, he threw the bag at her to which she moved away from its path as to not get hit but her eyes were aimed at the flying object and not at the agile fox.

 _Sweet cheese and crackers…_ She felt a strong force to swap away her taser from her paws, getting the bruise on her wrist to sting and her to clench her teeth from the painful sensation, and when she moved her head, she spotted a very unamused tod who pushed her to the ground but she managed grab onto his fur on his arms, and with the momentum, throw him off balance with the help of her tough feet as they fell together. The fall was on her injured leg and she scrunched her face in irritation, which was being suppressed by the adrenaline that was spreading through her system, but she had to hurry and get on her feet, which she did swiftly.

She could see Nick in front of her with extended claws and exposed teeth while he breathed heavily, he looked dangerous and very terrifying to her but she actually even took a step forward without hesitation. He wasn't running. Why wasn't he running? His gaze moved to something behind her for a second which made her realize that the bag must be close to her.

"Judy… give me the bag and just forget about this. We will talk later," he more like demanded which twisted her heart yet again.

"You are under arrest. We can talk when I put the cuffs on you!" she retorted strongly but her voice cracked from the realization that he had just attacked her and was getting himself ready for another try. She needed to grab her taser.

"Judy…" he began but that managed to crack her and she needed to act or her emotional state would just make her forfeit the battle she so hard was trying to win. Quickly, with a dash backwards, she reached for her weapon and reloaded it with another live cartridge but when she searched for the tod, he had already grabbed the bag but just as he was to try and exit the alley, he noticed her and leaped towards the metal trash bins, hiding himself from the lethal probes of pain and suffering.

"If you let me explain—" he attempted to cool down the situation but was quickly interjected by the doe.

"I heard everything you liar! Don't you dare deny it!" she shouted from the top of her lungs while slowly creeping at an angle towards the obstruction as to get him in her sights and bring him down. Time was running out.

"If you just… l—"

"I don't want to hear it!" she shouted desperately, knowing that he would try to use his wit to buy himself time, and time was of the essence which was problematic.

The top of the rusty-metal trash can shook and Nick grabbed it like a shield, starting to creep towards her and getting her to take a few steps back as the rounded top of the metal container was just obscuring his whole body. He was close to the door of the flat which she was almost certain that was locked and smirked, seeing the desperate attempt of escape. He had managed to trick her with throwing the bag but there wouldn't be a 2nd time, she would make sure of that.

He peeked his head slightly from above his makeshift shield and looked at her with dread until his eyes narrowed at something behind her and she managed to spot incredible strain in his expression. "Look out!" he yelled, a yell that pierced her ears which got her to instinctively trust him and turn around as to protect herself from the unknown. But there was nothing and no one which made her foot to thump the ground and just then she heard the creaking of hinges, creaking that brought mortification of what she had just done.

She turned around and saw him open the door and try and enter when she shot her probes at him but hit the old metal door instead because of his incredible speed. _I fell for the simplest trick in the world. Are you kidding me!_ But there was no time for berating as she sprinted towards the screeching rusty door and entered while reloading another cartridge. She couldn't believe herself that he was going to escape her.

It was dark yet through the dirty windows some light managed to force itself into the moist and suffocating basement. She could hear the scraping of claws on the concrete floor somewhere in front of her and she allowed more energy to flow towards her muscles. This was his territory, this was his world. He had experience in such situations, she didn't. But that didn't mean that she was going to let him do as he pleased after what he had accidently let out because of his gloating.

The floor was slippery and moldy, there was trash scattered all around the corridor, making her stumble and push random objects of unknown properties because of her bad vision. Cobwebs got into her eyes while her furry head was getting entangled into the sticky traps, traps that had living beings onto them, beings that with dread tried to flee to safety, some abandoning ship, others crawling around the running doe as to find safety.

Yet she pressed on, not even slightly impressed by the bad conditions she had to go through as her family farm had hardened her a lot and it wasn't hard to follow after the tod either as the trash was making it impossible for him to move unheard as her ears were just too good. She was catching up to him, that was for certain.

The odd thing was that he was fleeing in a straight line and not hiding into the abandoned rooms that some had their doors opened and light peeked through them as well. Maybe he wasn't underestimating her and that was his sole reason for doing exactly the opposite of what she would think he would do. That could be it.

Her thoughts were scattered all around when she stepped into a small hole, a hole that was filled with water. But it wasn't normal water as it smelled foul, that foulness now having found its way onto her fur and in between the space of her foot pads. The place was rather unkept, disgusting and abandoned, yet it was the basement, most basements were like that, probably not those in Downtown tho, definitely not in Downtown.

She reached the stairs of the flat and climbed towards the main floor, going through the widely opened steel door and arriving at the flat's foyer, where light was dominating and giving her the gift of clear sight. The foyer had a humble appearance but not one as bad as the basement's because visibly it was at least cleaned a month ago, probably. She searched for the entrance as that would be the most reasonable place the red vulpine would be headed to, yet she heard steps and scratching on wood towards the upper floor and sprinted madly after that noise.

The doe managed to climb a few floors and caught sight of the agile fox, who glanced at her through the old wooden railing and she spotted his scared to the bone face as he climbed on all fours up the floors. She could hear his labored pants and grunts and knew that his endurance was way worse than hers which gave her hope that she could catch him. With a leap, she began climbing after the fox on the run who was leaving a trail dread in his wake while she was only slightly feeling exhaustion, her furnace of life burning hot and strong.

She was catching up and could now see his lowered tail on each floor they climbed while getting closer and closer to him and readying her weapon as to bring him down at last.

But the unexpected happened as it appeared that they were nearing to top floors with furniture having been placed around the stairs, furniture that she saw the fox to push towards her. It was a table that almost hit her if she hadn't dashed to the side. But that dash cost her time as she heard the opening of a door and the sound of heavy steps against creaking wood.

That got her to growl from frustration and continue her pursuit which lead her towards a smaller corridor that followed towards the last floor, the attic. His claw marks from his feet were visible on the wooden steps as he had needed a lot of friction to keep up his fast pace and at the end of the steps was one last door that was halfly-opened.

She got through the last obstacle and looked around while closing carefully the exit behind her. It wasn't a big attic but it was quite cramped with old furniture. It was dark as the window's curtains were blocking the sun's vibrance which she quickly fixed with an instant motion that released a lot of ancient dust into the old air and the rays exposed the grey string traps that looked rather abandoned and dusty, yet in great numbers all around the place. That got her to cough and move away from the disrupted particles while some other smell caught her wiggling nose, the scent of Nick, the scent of sweaty fox. She may not have had a nose as good as his but that was something that probably anyone could've detected.

"Show yourself in the name of the law!" she shouted in an attempt to make him talk and give away his hiding spot but nothing happened as only the sounds of city life and cooing of pigeons could be heard from behind the thin-dusty windows.

She drew her weapon closer to herself and tip-toed around the old beds, drawers and cupboards while using her free paw to remove the ancient cobwebs from her path because she wasn't content of getting any more of them in her eyes or fur. The furniture was of different sizes and even if the room wasn't that big, there were just too many blind spots for her to look after. She knew that Nick was incredibly agile and could sneak with ease but what she had as a perk was her gift from God. Her ears.

Something crashed close to her, springing one of her ears in the air, and she rounded around the drawers that were stacked onto one another, while pointing her electricity-cannon at the place where the sound had come from. But there was no one, just a small cloud of dust that the rays of warmth were exposing to her lilac eyes, eyes that quickly noticed a sprawled book with its face on the floor. _Crafty fox…_

Focusing all her energy, she listened for an inhale, scratch, anything that resembled movement. And movement she got when some planks behind her creaked and got her to turn around to spot the shocked reynard who was ready to pounce but upon detecting that he was spotted, glided to the side as her sizzling probes grazed the fur on his arm.

That made her to growl lowly in anger because of the missing of all her shots which would soon give her no choice but to tranquilize him. But she had forgotten herself while in that small amount of time of reflection.

Reloading her taser took time and time was what she didn't have in a cramped space where a very agile fox lurked. Wood creaked on her side and she swooshed so fast that her ears hit her back with force while they drooped down.

But there was no one there, just emptiness and dust while wind whistled about from outside as it found its way through the crevices of the old tiles. That was when she noticed the scent of musk to invade her nostrils from above to which she looked up and saw a very angry and entangled in a bit too-many-cobwebs fox on top the old drawer.

She tried to scurry away but he leaped at her and managed to grab her uninjured leg, getting her to lose balance and fall flat on her back on the dusty floor while dropping her empty weapon somewhere in the room.

He pulled her towards him and tried to overpower her but she managed to fiercely hit his chest with her free leg and get him to stumble back with a grunt and increased breathing and she knew that the hit had winded him down. The situation brought memories of her dream from not long ago where the shadowy fox had tried to hurt her as well but somehow she didn't feel scared from Nick, not at all as he wasn't actually trying to hurt her when he could've. Was he holding back? And why would he trap himself in the attic when he could've escaped on the ground floor.

There was no time for thinking and there was no time for weapons, this was paw to paw combat and in front of her stood a predator with his natural tools of death but he wasn't that stupid to use them as that would definitely get him a life sentence. Nick wasn't an idiot.

But he visibly knew how to mask his controlled and clever self, by baring his teeth and extending his claws as if he was going to gut her alive. The light was shining upon his raised hackles which were overtaken by grey clingy strings of annoyance and he did look extremely terrifying yet her heart was telling her that everything was alright, that he would never harm her, thus burying her instincts and keeping her collected which was something that she was grateful for.

They scrutinized each other and studied one another's movements closely and carefully when at last, Nick had had enough and charged at her to which she easily evaded his attempt to grab her but he wasn't a big and clumsy mammal which was something that she had momentarily forgotten and surprise hit her when he swooped her off the ground from behind and tried to throw her on the floor but she managed to stick her foot from between his legs and behind his knee to which he just couldn't pull her enough and the expense of fuel costed him a great deal of wasted energy which was her chance to get out of his weakened grasp.

Her feet touched the ground and she ducked while grabbing both his paws with hers and pushing her rump against him while extending both her paws forward as if she was going for a dive which managed to push back the tod, who grunted in response, and her to escape.

Her body was flushed and she was outright panting out of sync with Nick. The musty smell of the stagnant air wasn't helping her either as the dusty particles were managing to tickle her nostrils as well as the insides of her lungs which got her to sneeze a few times. She then saw Nick's baffled expression which turned into a grin and then he started tittering with sharp gasps for air as he was visibly exhausted as well, which made her scrunch her face in distaste and she used the momentum of his distracted state to make her move.

The move got him by surprise as she stepped on his foot and that restricted him from moving away. He tried pushing her back but she grabbed his arm, pulled it towards her and put firm pressure on the area of his triceps, while bending the joints outwards, which made his stumble forward and fall to the ground on his knees while she still pressured his immobilized limb.

The increasing pressure made him cry out in agony and to fall flat on the unclean floor which was her que to get it over with as she pulled his arm swiftly upwards while locking him with her knees on his head, and the side below his shoulder, which now stood like a flag pole. That had disabled him from doing anything else and he just remained still with weak whimpers, heavy exhales, grunts and struggles to break free. But it was all in vain, she had him.

"Judy, don't do this!" he sneered through gritted teeth as his body tensed while his other paw scratched the wooden surface so hard that the sharp claws were digging into the wood, the strain in his voice being so clear to the doe, so painful, yet needed.

He was resisting which meant that she needed to apply more pressure to show him that it was over and that was what she did. She pushed his limb towards an unnatural angle and got his tendons to strain under the extreme pressure. She was hurting him and even after everything he had done, it was still agonizing for her, but now she had her duty to do and there was no time for guilt or overthinking.

The question came if she should sedate him and then put on the cuffs but it would take an hour for him to wake up and she wasn't content on carrying him down who knows how many floors and to her cruiser. If she took the risk and swiftly snapped the steel around his wrists, things would be over in seconds.

But she wasn't going to give the reynard another chance of escape. He would gladly take it, so she reached for her tranquilizer with a sweaty and lightly shaking paw, leaning slightly away from him and grabbed a needle that contained the toxins of rest. But that was when she felt something push her with weak strength, something bushy and long. It was his tail, tail that got her to lose her balance.

His tensed arm snaked away from her one-pawed hold and the red vulpine scurried away as he stood up while holding his sore limb and looking at Judy with fury that was etched onto his whole being. She needed to sedate him fast or things could get ugly, his mask was off and he actually seemed violent.

But just as she was about to grab her tranquilizer, she felt the weight of another to push against her and topple her to the awful floor on her back. Disoriented but trained, she tried to resist with kicks and jabs. A few managed to hit their mark but they weren't very strong and that made Nick to grab one of her legs and squeeze with strength as to immobilize it.

The bad news for her was that it was her injured one and she cried out in agony as the pain pierced her to the center of her bone, making her eyes to water from the sharp unwelcomed misery and then the throbbing began while the spot felt as if it were on melting fire. Her heart exploded from panic and her instincts blackened her vision. But it was short-lived.

Nick instantly let go and looked at the re-damaged spot in terror, something in him seemed to have cracked as he stumbled and fell flat on his rump while gawking at Judy whose nose was wiggling and lips quivering. She couldn't place what had just happened. Was he feeling guilt or remorse? What was going on? She flushed the fear out of the way, as best as it was possible, and recollected herself even if the bruise pulsated with her every beat of her racing heart.

Not content on finding out later, she used the moment of surprise and tackled him to the ground but his resistance was weak, it was frail and was nothing compared to that a few moments ago, which stupefied her but she took the chance, rolled him over and snapped the cold steel on both his auburn wrists.

With heavy pants and shivers derived from exhaustion, she crawled close to a box and leaned against it while Nick was forced to do the same but flat on his face on the planks while his disgruntled shirt exposed some of his lightly-moist belly fur that had a lot of dustiness caught onto it.

Her quest had found some type of closure. Nick was panting on the disgusting floor but wasn't peeling a single word, he just laid there motionlessly. But that was alright by her. That was perfect. Everything had worked out after a lengthy actual workout. A smile grew on her face as she giggled adorably.

She had captured the notorious Nick Wilde. But happiness was being quickly eaten away by something else, something familiar, something bothersome.

It was something that she feared that would come as a repercussion of the betrayal she had experienced as well as the one she would serve, even if by the law it was alright. Her heart was apparently telling her otherwise with attempts of getting her to abandon her quest for revenge, which was getting her veins to sting and body to itch.

…

…

It was remorse.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

\- Wth is going on? Even I don't have a clue!

\- **Music while writing:** _Eisbrecher - Sturmfahrt_

\- **Latest edit:** 10.11.2017

\- **Tumblr:** _markovas_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_


	20. Empathic Submission

**Empathic Submission**

* * *

Remorse was jumping around unchecked and that was making Judy doubt her own choice, the choice that seemed so right and convenient at the time before her confrontation with her 'friend'. But now everything was quite the opposite, there wasn't that feeling of accomplishment, that feeling of triumph. It was more like unwant to finish what was started and her exhausted self was fueling the negative thoughts immensely which made her to close her eyes that had quite some webs on her lashes but that was not important to her.

What was important was that there were choices to be made, choices without reversal and that was what was plaguing her already troubled mind. If that bag was full with what she thought it was then the consequences for Nick would be catastrophic. She would be ruining his entire life and who knows when he would taste freedom again, even she didn't know the right number despite the fact of her being a cop. The reason for her failed recollections of memory was her haziness and lack of fresh air, her sinuses feeling as if they were on fire, because of the concentrated dust, and giving her a headache.

But if he had chosen this path why should she let him do so. Wouldn't this be a slap to the face, a slap that would bring more sense into his cunning mind of his. But her heart was being shredded in two, it was begging her to understand him, to ask him, to talk to him. It was overtaking her and it seemed that it was winning because her resolve to just walk him to the PD without peeling a word or even listening was being smashed into the ground with immense friction.

That got her to sigh in defeat and to remove some of the grey webs that were on the insides of her ears, all around her head and face. She hugged her knees and stared at the worn-out floor and for a second she felt her lilacs to quiver as some moisture tried to force itself out but she clamped them shut and exhaled. "Okay… this is it…" she mumbled to herself and stood up with some slight strain as her recently re-bruised leg was still annoyingly throbbing under the rhythm of her heart.

She looked at the motionless fox, who hadn't even moved a centimeter, with a sad frown as she neared him. He looked pretty dirty as he had definitely collected all the webs before her as well as the dust that was clinging onto his wet clothes. She thought that he did look slightly silly in the way he was laying on the old floor but there was no humor inside of her, only desperate crave for answers, venomous anger and limb-chilling sadness.

She took a knee close to his shoulder and ordered firmly, "Come on. Get up." With a paw under his armpit and with his cooperation, she managed to pull him up and get him to sit on his butt with both his legs in front and paws cuffed behind his back. But his head immediately moved away from her to somewhere else as if he didn't want to meet her head on.

That got her eyebrows to go up and her to get in front of him but he was still defying to look at her, which slightly began infuriating her already disgruntled blood but she remained content and began her interrogation.

"Why, Nick?" she began with a dead-serious tone to which the tod only scoffed mockingly and refused to meet her gaze.

"Why did you do this!" she shouted but the seriousness in her voice was starting to lose its domination as she huddled both her paws close to her chest, chest that was moving up and down with an increasing pace.

"What do you care…" he muttered and the words managed to get to her as if she had taken an actual punch, words that made her take a step back.

"I wouldn't be talking to you if I didn't you dumb fox!" she yelled and clenched her fist in agitation but Nick was visibly unmoved by her attempts and that got her even more desperate. Why was he avoiding of getting himself out of the situation by using his wit and silver tongue. This was unlike him, this wasn't him. The Nick Wilde she knew wouldn't ever surrender like this even if he was caught red-pawed. Was he lying now as well? Was this just another façade? Where did the lies end?

Frustration and doubt about his true intentions overtook her again, which pushed the choice of taking him in even further away and made her desperate search for answers even more so. She needed to know, she wanted to know.

"Look at me," she uttered but her voice had lost its firmness due to her emotional musings to which she shook her head and repeated authoritatively, "Look, AT ME!"

Nick squirmed in the uncomfortable position he was being put in and slowly angled his head, settling his gaze at her with only one eye as the other was obscured by his entangled with webs muzzle. His expression was plain, his demeanor stoic, his attitude cold. He was striking her with his non-verbal actions even harder than if he were to use words, which got her lips to quiver as she managed to see hate and disgust in his jade eye. The bond she had let take its roots was weakening and the fire of her affection was dying with every passing moment. It was painful, it was unwanted, yet it couldn't be stopped. She didn't have the ability to do that.

"Was everything true?" she probed despondently again but he didn't twitch, he didn't even blink, only started at her with animosity which was making the end of her limbs go rigid and colder. But then, then she reached a boiling point and the anger derived from her frustration just spilled with intensity.

"At least be a male about it! Even I had more courage than you by facing everything that was thrown at me. You just act as if you don't care and shrug everything off. Why don't you just for once stop being such a… such a coward! Stop hiding yourself with that façade of yours. That's not who you are. Why do you make things so complicated… Stand for yourself and for once don't run away like you always do! Explain to me why and… maybe… we could forget about this. Please!" she finished venting everything out, most of which was exaggerated but in her losing of control, she just said what came to mind and the words seemed to have had their effect as Nick was staring at her with an opened mouth.

Hope bloomed in her that she had managed to get inside of him but then he scowled and growled while trying to stand up. The vicious growl made her fur to stand on an end and her to take a step back while he wiggled upwards so he could get on his two feet. She had to take control over the situation but it seemed that she was going to receive at least some sort of answers and that got her to hold back her advance to apprehend him yet again. But he could be dangerous if she had managed to emotionally wound him, yet the gamble was taken as she stood motionlessly with a slightly sentient nose.

"You really think you know everything… Don't you? You stupid fucking hick!" he spat vilely and slowly creeped towards her while her whole being was being twisted at the hateful words, which was making her want to curl into a ball and just hold herself until the blazing agony disappeared. But she wanted to hear all of it, needed to.

"You still believe that you can make the world a better place? Ha! Even after I showed you just a small portion of the shit that happens every single fucking day?" He had closed the distance between them and was leaning close to her, almost touching her nose with his. She could feel his hot and sporadic breath and could see his curled lips which were exposing his sharp teeth, teeth that could end her there and now, teeth that had chewed upon her ancestors long ago. But she refused to do anything about it. If she did, just the thought that he would close himself again was paralyzing her every muscle.

"I am who I am, Judy, and I as you said, what's the point of hiding it anymore? Everything you heard was true, everything you saw was true. I am a shifty criminal and backstabbing bastard. I would've gladly used you for my own benefit…"-his lips twitched-"because I don't give a shit about you!" he sneered and his aggressive rumbles pushed the hot air towards her frozen from terror face. She was breaking apart and her lilacs couldn't take it anymore as they began leaking and soaking the fur under them with intensity. She hugged herself but didn't even dare to blink or move her despondent gaze from Nick's hateful but inconsistent one.

His words had done it, they had at last managed to fully get to her, and now she felt incredibly vulnerable and fragile but that was slightly diminished when she saw Nick's nose to twitch, something that almost never happened, after which he scoffed and turned around quickly, brushing her shivering knees accidently with his disheveled bushy tail. Something was wrong, his words were genuine as his body supported each and every syllable but in the end it was as if he actually contradicted himself by refusing to look at her broken self.

He shuffled back and sat in his old position while consistently looking at his feet. Judy's head managed to spark one last idea, one last attempt at finding his true intentions and she knew what part of his body would betray him unconditionally, therefor, with a huff of determination, she walked towards the red fox as she removed the leftover salty moisture from her purple eyes.

She stopped just before him and as he sensed her presence, he looked up. "Stay away from me or I will hurt you," he warned and bared his teeth, making her instincts to begin taking over her body again while yelling at her to stay away. But she needed to be sure, and that was the only way.

"I don't believe you." She creeped slowly towards him and saw him try to kick her with his legs but she swapped them away and closed the distance between their heads. His eyes were darting everywhere around her as his growls grew even more threatening, getting her little heart to pump even faster, yet she reached with her paw towards him but he didn't stay idle and snapped his teeth just next to her fingers, getting her to flinch and to back up.

Her instincts were now in control and they weren't letting her near the red fox whose lips were curling and rumbles were escaping his throat. The moment he had snapped his jaw so close to her was the moment she felt primal trembling and reflexes in her body, it was primitive and was like the one at the bus stop she had to go through and experience. But now she was actually afraid to take that step unlike then, something was telling her that it would be an incredibly bad idea to push the vulpine further as he seemed even more desperate. The bond was falling apart and a whimper escaped her throat, a whimper that caused Nick to squirm with hard grunts.

"Get away from me!" he yelled and tried to flee but as the visible panic had engulfed him, he just hugged his knees and hid his face from the doe who was staring at him with a widely opened mouth.

She was getting to him and there was still a drop of denial inside of her which made one last attempt in giving the reynard a chance. "Stop lying and tell me the truth!" she tried one last time, the cracking of her voice giving away the despair that had overwhlemed her.

"Why do you care!" he shouted miserably and stared at her with incredible anticipation in his fiery eyes.

"Because I l—" Her throat felt dry and it squeezed hard, making the last two words impossible to pronounce, words she knew were true, words she used to believe in until today. But they just wouldn't come out, every attempt was met with a suffocating squeeze in her neck, a squeeze that quickly moved towards her heart. She couldn't say it anymore, not after what he had confessed and done. He was pushing her away with all his will and there was nothing else in the world that could come up in her head to make him do otherwise.

Nick lost interest because of her inability to finish her sentence and that got her to sigh. The chance was missed and there was no point in talking anymore, all that remained was for her to drive him to Precinct One and be done with it even if it pained her. She pinched her nose, exhaled all the stress and removed the unwanted moisture from the heartwrenching realization.

She needed to find that bag, the bag that was not on him and that meant that he had definitely hid it somewhere. That got her to decide to find it without him because he just couldn't escape her anymore, not with cuffed paws and her sharp ears that would detect him if he tried to flee again.

It didn't take her long to find it in an old drawer with her dropped taser along the way which she holstered. The old drawer had visible pawprints of where the dust was disturbed thus she opened it carefully and saw the hundreds of white rounded pills that didn't have any indication of what they were. She extremely gently opened one of the zip bags and sniffed from a distance. But there was no scent, nothing. That confused her and she wasn't going to go ahead and try one of them in order to understand what they were. She wasn't thickheaded.

She closed the bag with heavy discouragement and headed towards the defeated red vulpine who was visibly still hiding his face behind his legs. Halting close to him and throwing the bag at his feet, she demanded, "What are these?"

He glanced at her with an evil grin and retorted, "Why don't you try them and see for yourself?"

That got her to scoff in soft irritation and she figured that enough time was wasted and that probably she was out of radio range which meant that if she was searched for, she wouldn't know.

"Get up," she bid, to which he tried to do so as she helped him stand on his feet. Then the bag was put on his shoulder because she wasn't going to carry his shame as well, and she began pushing him forwards towards the stairs. He was at least being cooperative and wasn't trying to worsen her day further, at least for that she was grateful after everything that had happened along the noxious path.

They got to the stairs and began climbing down and that was when Judy noticed an old female maned wolf with a green spotted dress who was trying to get the table, that Nick had pushed towards her, away from the path and succeeded in doing so shortly after.

The female spotted them but that got her smile to morph into a scowl. "Were you two doing all the ruckus up there? Don't you know the hour!" she berated both of them and crossed her arms as she sidestepped to the center of the path and blocked the way. She was slightly taller than Nick but age had taken its toll on her physique considerably, yet intimidation wasn't something that had left her through time.

The elderly mammal noticed the steel on Nick's wrists and instantly began, "What are you doing to that young fox, bunny?" she finished with hints of anger in her voice and Judy stopped just before the tall obstacle that seemed reluctant to move away.

Just as she was to explain, Nick interjected with slyness and disturbing arrogance, "Apparently arguing with prey mammals is now a crime… probably because I'm a f—"

Judy harshly shook him and got him to shut up while she pulled out her badge, showing it to the elderly maned wolf who squinted her eyes and after a few more moments moved away from their path but with visible scorn that was aimed at the bunny officer.

"Thank you ma'am," Judy restated while pinning the shiny metal of pride on her vest as she continued down the stairs with the red fox in front.

But it seemed that the elderly female had one last thing to say. "You know who to call, right, sunny?"

Nick actually tittered and angled his head slightly towards the maned wolf who was slightly worried at that very moment. "Don't we all," he voiced in reassurance and winked at the female who smirked in response.

Curiosity overtook the grey doe and she mused about the exchange between Nick and the elderly mammal. After a few flights of stairs, she probed, "What was that about?"

There was just a scoff from Nick's side and after a few moments, he only added, "Nothing that concerns you, Officer Fluff." The retort got her down but it wasn't as painful anymore, just annoying and she could feel that the turning of a new page was very close, within acceptable reach.

They got outside and Judy pulled out her phone as to look at the time and bewilderment struck her when she saw that it was around 3pm. She had wasted a lot of time and who knows how long they had they stayed up there in that suffocating attic. Her orders were to get to the Precinct by twelve and it was already due three hours. That made her already pained heart to adopt that faster pace of unwanted energy. It was for certain that the other perp who was to come and meet Nick had already left, there was no question about that, thus she resumed pushing the red tod towards her cruiser.

It took them some time as the red cheeky vulpine pushed himself against walking mammals and created problems for both him and Judy while she had to assert her authority all the time as well as attempt to get the irritating fox in line. He didn't help her as he swooshed his tail constantly and tickled her wrists, nose and whatever else he could get to.

But alas, they neared the shinning cruiser that seemed to be in the same condition she had left it in. She unlocked it and opened the backdoor, pushing the unamused tod inside and going to the front as to grab something that was extremely necessary due to protocol. Too many rules had been broken by her for today but the question came if one more mattered, yet she banished it instantly because those corruptible thoughts were disrupting her mind a bit too much of late.

She grabbed the cold equipment and hopped back into the cage where a disinterested vulpine sat, looking outside the window and not even wanting to glance at her direction which just got her to shake her head in disapprovement. After getting close to him, she ordered quietly, "Lean closer to me." But his reaction was non-existent to which she sighed sadly and without even hesitating, grabbed the top of his mouth and pulled it closer to her to which there was no actual resistance.

But when his jades met the item in her paw that was now moving towards his mouth, he yelped painfully, as if melting iron met his skin, scrambled furiously and squirmed restlessly, getting the doe to create safe distance between them because her ears were ringing from the shrilling sound he had made and because of confusion of what had happened.

He was pushing himself into the door and the leather cushions as if his life depended on it, his face and eyes expressing indescribable horror while he stared widely at the prop in her paw which's leather straps were swooshing around aimlessly. What was happening and why was he reacting in such a way. This definitely wasn't an act of his, he actually looked desperate as his muscles trembled under the weight of his dread. His eyes began darting around and when she took a step forward he almost charged at her if she hadn't retreated instantly.

"Do you want me to sedate you?" she asked as her heart began pounding in her ears because of her dislike at seeing suffering as such.

Taking his time, visibly trying to calm himself down, he at last answered, "D-d-don't p-p-put that on m-m-me! P-p-please, J-j-judy! Not a m-m-muzzle..."

One of her eyebrows went up and she decided to put the muzzle on herself as to show him that there was nothing to be afraid of. She wasn't going to make fun of his muddled thinking, she was an officer and was going to act accordingly. But she knew that even if she wasn't one, her choice wouldn't be much different.

Therefor she put the metal object on her head and strapped it tight while looking at his trembling lips. This was the side of Nick that she had never seen and it made her fingers to ache at the realization that she was doing it to him but there was no other choice.

The cold metal met her skin, cooling it slightly but not to such an extent as to make her uncomfortable. "See? Nothing to fear," she reassured the trembling vulpine who was staring at her as if she was going to be his executioner. A huff of frustration escaped her throat and got her to think how she could make him do as she told him to without harming him. Her chest tightened as nothing came to mind and after a few moments, she reached for her tranquilizer to which Nick, with audible cracking of his voice stuttered out.

"O-okay! B-but c-can y-you… p-put it a-after w-we'v-ve ar-rived…"

The compromise didn't sound as bad and the choice was taken to give him some time before putting the cold prop around his mouth. She couldn't understand why he trembled before something so ridiculous yet wasn't going to ask now as he would definitely push her away. After all, he had made it crystal clear that he didn't want anything more to do with her. Thus she removed the prop and put it on the seat close to Nick, hopped out with the closing of the door and sat on the driver's seat.

The car vibrated under the roar of the engine and she pulled the receiver of the fixated radio in the car but just as she was to begin speaking, she noticed the frequency being different than the one she was given to use to which her eyes narrowed and her mind tried to find a reason for that issue for which an answer just didn't seem to formulate inside her confused mind.

Shrugging it off, she changed the frequency to the one on her portable radio and began talking, "Officer Hopps reporting in. I've got a suspect in custody with a possible 3110 in large quantities. Taking him back to base," she finished and just as she was to press on the gas, someone began talking directly to her.

"Judy, what are you doing in that cruiser… The Chief has been looking all over for you. You are to come back immediately and see him when you do." That was the voice of Clawhauser who audibly had a shudder in his tone to which her ears drooped and nose shook as the information that Bogo wanted to see her just sent chills up her spine, chills that had a greater effect because her recent emotional adventures.

"U-u-understood but did he specify why?" she asked as the paw that was holding the plastic receiver started sweating from the newly arisen pressure in her body. It didn't take long for Clawhauser to answer but it was too plain for her liking.

"No but you should hurry."

With a huff that released some stress, she returned the radio and got herself ready to drive while Nick just sat there quietly and motionlessly. There were no retorts, no teasings, nothing. From her mirror she could visibly see him glancing at the muzzle that was close to him and that just arose more and more questions that she really wanted answered but there were more important issues at stake. That being that she was to get into that damn cold office again and talk with her intimidating commanding officer who probably was beginning to enjoy making her feel small and worthless.

* * *

It was as if the world was against her. She caught every red light, stopped at every pedestrian crossing, was caught in traffic jams. Everything was accumulating towards her stress as time was just moving too fast, it was as if the clock had forgotten itself and used minutes as seconds. Her right foot became frustrated and began thumping the gas pedal to which the vehicle choked itself because of the short and sharp intakes of fuel, making both passenger's heads to bounce both ways from the velocity.

But because Nick didn't have his seatbelt on as she had forgotten to put it on him because of her bafflement with the muzzle, she heard him hit the cage fence, probably with his head as he groaned miserably. That made her fur to slightly jolt as the tod was suffering too much under her paws even if it was justifiable yet she wasn't such a mammal to enjoy such things.

Just as she was to apologize because of her mistake, she heard him retort irritatingly but with a hint of sarcasm, nevertheless, "Are all rabbits bad drivers, or is it just you?"

That sprung the memory from the van when she had teased him about the exactly same thing and got her to snort in amusement but she didn't retort in any way, just kept silent because of her dedication to cut the ties with him as he had expressed his position loud and clear. Yet, the stalking shadows in her mind were still disrupting her attempts at peacefulness every single moment, but nothing could be done no more.

At last, she managed to get to Precinct One's parking lot and stopped the cruiser at its original spot, strangely enough. The rumbling engine died as the grey rabbit leaned against the comfortable seat, looked through the windshield, behind which was the bustling street, and she closed her amethysts, starving them of the light and engulfing them in shadows, giving them the illusion of rest.

She just wanted this to be over and her to move on with life. The longer she stood in the presence of the red fox, the worse it was getting even if she now saw him for what he really was. The visible truth was that there was that part of him which he was suppressing, which he had shown her even if he had confessed that it was all a façade, a sham. But that wasn't entirely true, it just wasn't.

With a sigh, she reached for her utility belt and unstrapped her carrot pen, which she slowly took and leveled with her eyes, staring at it with concentration and playing with the button which if pressed would play the recording she had so much contemplated about. If she used this, his life would be ruined entirely and there wouldn't be a way back from this, it would just be impossible. The government always got what it was owed, always.

Pocketing the pen and sighing, she opened the backdoor, exited and hopped onto the cushions. Nick was in the same corner at the door with an arched back forward and plain stare that was aimed at the leathery seat. He seemed distant and unresponsive but what was she to do, comfort him? After everything that had happened? No. She searched for the muzzle that was missing from the seat and found it below it as it had probably slid when her foot became sentient.

Holding it in her paws, she stared at the cold prop for a bit and then at the apathetic fox who hadn't even glanced at her since her appearance at the cage. She knew that putting it on him would be hard as he had shown incredible anxiety and trepidation when she had attempted to do so. But it was protocol and she had already broken it, thus she began gently, "Nick, its time."

The red fox moved his gaze and spotted the dreaded item in her paws, his ears falling flat against his skull and his hackles raising. He squirmed in his seat and groaned while glancing at Judy in submission as well as resistance and she could clearly see his unwant.

"C-can't we figu—"

He tried to argue his case but she interjected harshly, "No."

That got him to whimper with a few more groans and just like that, he bashed the cage with his feet with a lot of force. "Fucking shit!" he yelled with a cracking voice, getting the doe to step back and reach for her tranquilizer instinctively as he was acting psychotic but then he stopped, yet his lips were curling and throat was rumbling. He closed his eyes and growled through gritted teeth, "P-put it on before I c-change my mind."

There was hesitation for a moment but then she lunged forward and quickly put on the cold metal around his muzzle and strapped it shut to the back of his head, jumping back instantly as she was done. His breath had become rigid and his muscles tensed as he writhed. But when he opened his eyes, that was when he lost it and slammed his head into the window next to him, slightly deforming the metal muzzle.

He was panicking and entering shock which was too clear for the doe who stood with her mouth agape at what was happening in front of her. If she didn't stop him, he could hurt himself really bad. When his saliva started leaking off his mouth and he hit his head in the cage this time, she just couldn't take it anymore and jumped right in, grabbing his head and pulling him into a very tight hug right under his neck, making it impossible for him to injure himself further more.

His whimpers were so close to her ears and she could feel his unhealthy heartbeat through his jugular that she was tightly holding. His breathing was sporadic and he was incredibly warm. Why was he reacting in such a manner? He was incredibly vulnerable at that moment and seemed so weak, so powerless, so in need of someone to help him.

The want to comfort him was immense, it became immeasurable in her mind as it pushed all the dislike towards his true colors away for the moment. Her rational part was telling her to leave him be and just get him to his cell but her heart was just breaking apart at the trembling vulpine who was hissing and squirming in her hold. He had helped her when she needed help, he had held her when she needed holding. Yes, everything was part of his plan but he had done it, nevertheless, and it hadn't hurt her in any way, only gave her happiness and warmth.

She could return some of that gentleness, some of that affection one last time but without an agenda, only because of the pureness of her longing heart. With a deep breath that filled her nose with the scent of likeable musk, she began caressing the creamy fur around his neck while humming gently. Unsurprisingly that reduced the whimpers and his muscles slightly relaxed as his resisting just disappeared. She pulled him to lean against the seat and whispered in his ear, while her paws were still around his soft creamy neck, "Just breathe, Nick, just breathe."

He seemed to have grasped her words as he closed her eyes and attempted to get himself in check which after a bit managed to remove the shock from his system but not the trembling of his body.

Judy knew that time was running out and even if she actually enjoyed this last closeness with the red vulpine, there just wasn't any more time left and she slightly pulled away from him and gently added, "It's just a harmless prop, Nick. The only thing you have to fear is fear itself, right?" she reassured soothingly as she caressed the fur on top of his head, caressing which made him to level his jades with her lilacs and moon at her. His eyes were filled with guilt, incredible guilt and then, just like that they quivered and she saw tears starting to form as he closed them instantly and harshly pushed his head the other way out of her grasp.

"Just g-get me to my c-cell!" he shouted with a cracking voice, which spurred even more questions of what was that about and her heart just wanted to understand, to find out. But there was no turning back anymore. Things had progressed too much and it was just impossible to erase them. The tightness in her stomach became even more intense as she helped the red vulpine to get out of the car.

She closed and locked it, put the bag under her armpit but just as she was to walk him towards the PD she noticed that the cuffs were digging into his skin, which was unacceptable and unneeded in addition to all that she made him go through, even if it wasn't anything compared to what he had made her experience. Yet, she couldn't know that, his tears were something that incredibly baffled her mind and disoriented her whole self. She weakened the cuffs and resumed the long walk towards Nick's gloomy future.

They entered through the front doors and were immediately spotted by Clawhauser whose expression immediately turned solemn and as they neared his desk, he delivered, "After you're finished, go straight to the Chief, Judy." She nodded plainly and pushed the downcast tod forward towards the slammer.

It didn't take them much time to get the cells that she remembered so well as she had laid there not so long ago. Most of them were empty which was a first while an old elk officer seemed to be standing guard, or more like snoozing on his desk, making Judy to scoff in scorn at the unprofessional behavior the prestigious Precinct was allowing, yet hadn't she done the same, breaking so many regulations in the process of apprehending Nick. That got her to shake her head and ahem as they neared the desk which almost obscured them from view of the tired elk officer.

He grunted and stretched himself and as he saw the two smaller mammals, he put his head on his hoof and asked methodically, "What?"

Judy allowed a small friendly smile to enter her initials and returned, "I'm taking this mammal in for possession of supposable drugs as well as distribution." The elk sighed and from under the worn-out desk grabbed a key and throwed it at her direction but she wasn't expecting such a move and missed it, thus it clanked on the floor with an echoing continuation that resonated upon the concrete walls.

The elk snorted maliciously and shot, "Typical. Ineptitude bunnies." The words entered Judy's ears, as she picked up the cold key off the ground, with the attempt to wound her but she blocked them off by putting a mental wall, not wanting to enter a confrontation with a bigot, a confrontation that wouldn't have a good outcome. But just as she was about to pull Nick, he took a step forward and shocked her so much that she didn't even react.

"Take a look at yourself first, asshole," Nick spat and growled at the taller mammal who instantly sat up and towered over the fox who didn't even flinch, just bared his teeth under the misshaped muzzle.

"Shut your shitty mouth you fucking filthy fox!" the elk sneered and reached for his baton on his utility belt. Judy was at loss of words at Nick's incredibly mind-boggling actions. After everything he had done and said, he still tried to defend her against the unjust and vile? But why? What was his game and where did his lies end. Was there something that he wasn't telling her? She could see his raised hackles and extended claws which restlessly moved up and down as he squirmed his cuffed wrists. He was being impulsive towards her, as if he wanted to protect her in a way, as if he wanted to shield her from the hate by aiming it at himself.

Her heart fell even further and the doubt about his intentions returned with burning strength but there was only one choice now and there was no going back even if she wanted to know the real truth so badly, so desperately. His actions were contradicting his words which meant one thing, lies about his lies.

She shook her head and grabbed him by the forearm, pulling him towards the nearby free cell. He relented and did as he was bid but not before sending the fuming elk one final murderous glare. She opened the door and walked inside with him, removed his cuffs gently and then got him to face her. He was avoiding her gaze as she reached for the straps to remove the metal muzzle. Just as it fell of his mouth, she saw him close his eyes and for a moment, a smile crept up his lips but it died down as soon as he opened his emeralds and glanced at her. There wasn't hate, there wasn't joy, there wasn't fear, they were filled with actual guilt like when she comforted him in the cage.

He opened his mouth as to say something but nothing escaped his throat, only silence. He tried again while his jaw trembled under some unknown pressure, "I…" but again he failed and instantly turned around as to put some distance between himself and the disoriented doe whose eyes were widely opened as well as her mouth due to bafflement having overtaken every single cell of her body, paralyzing her for the short moment.

She rubbed her forehead with her paw and exited the cell, locking it swiftly and walking towards the elk who seemed to be trying to doze off yet again. Something was wrong and she could sense it. Nick was giving off too many mixed signals and that meant only one thing, trouble and a possible problem that had made him do what he had. She needed to find out and help him because that was who she was and if she couldn't help a mammal that society had pushed to become as they had labeled him, then would she be really able to do good and initiate a change? Probably not.

Getting in front of the desk yet again, she coughed and grabbed the annoyed guard's attention. "Could I interrogate him later?" she asked and received a high-pitched scoff which made her ears to droop in disappointment.

"That's up to the detectives. Go on, don't bother me."

She almost went on her way when she remembered that the bag was still on her. "Where do I give the evidence for investigation?"

The guard huffed loudly. "3rd floor. Get," he demanded which made her scowl because of his demeaning tone and choice of words but she didn't argue as there was no time to waste, thus, with a quick pace, she climbed the stairs towards her destination.

Precinct One was bigger and superior than all the other departments as it had everything included inside the giant and expansive building. Where one lacked a shooting range the other lacked enough offices, Precinct One had everything. It was built to be the front of Zootopia's police, the shining example of exemplary order and stability within the blooming city that was filled with conflicting interests and a diverse population.

The building's 3rd floor was where the laboratory was located within which the evidence was processed easily and swiftly as the equipment had been recently developed and produced by the B.D-M. company, a company which's roots seemed to be almost everywhere. But who was to complain, at least there weren't any publicly known cases of mammals doing as such. But who would allow that anyway?

While climbing up the stairs, Judy thought if she should go check out what Bogo wanted from her first but her curiosity of finding about the bag's contents prevailed her sense of duty as she reluctantly spun on the soles of her feet and grumbled towards the upper floor.

As she opened the door that surprisingly had a handle for mammals her size, she was met with a corridor which's walls were made of glass, behind which the staff could be seen working with the complicated equipment. The ceiling was a dropped one and had white bulbs embedded within it as the light was being reflected upon the marble floor of the corridor.

The place was pristine and as she walked forwards with her mouth hung agape in awe, distraction shouldered in and she almost collided with a fellow colleague if it were not for the screeching worktable that the polecat was pushing out of a research room. That got the doe to stop and follow the mammal very thoroughly with her focused eyes. An idea quickly sprung within her as she remembered that she was clueless to who she was to give the evidence to and thus she sprinted behind the mammal and got to her side.

She didn't need to try and attract the polecat's attention as she noticed her easily, not being taller and uninterested what roamed below like most. But the female didn't stop and just kept pushing the worktable down the corridor with a plain expression.

"What is it, Officer…" the polecat began and emphasized with the prolonging of the last word that she wanted to know her name.

A small smile appeared on the doe's face as there didn't seem to be any bigotry in the female's voice, only tiredness as the day was progressing to an end. "Hopps, Judy Hoops,"-she almost began talking about a different subject when reality crushed upon her and told her to be quick about it-"I've got this evidence on me"-the black bag was pulled up-"and I was told that it was here where it is to be examined for its substances."

The polecat stopped shortly after registering the doe's words and sidestepped closer to the doe. "Usually the evidence is stored and is later checked…"-Judy's smile fell at the unwanted words-"but as you are already here... Meh, give it here." Joviality resurfaced, making the bunny to actually jump and push the bag into the female's paws, getting her to oof from the light impact and narrow her eyes on the slightly overactive doe.

"Sorry, sorry!" Judy apologized but her energy remained as the polecat snorted and shook her head, putting the bag on the worktable and pulling out a notepad with a pen.

"You bunnies… Okay, tell me the name of the mammal on who this was found."

Judy wanted to instantly do so but as she attempted to say Nick's name with her current smile, nothing happened but light vibrations and silence, which made her slightly confused and she tried again, this time recomposing herself and getting serious. "Nick Wilde."

The polecat scribbled something down and put the items back as she went towards the workbench and resumed her work without even saying anything else. That got Judy unsatisfied as she hadn't even found the name of the female, thus she probed strongly, "Uhm, I didn't catch your name."

The polecat chuckled and glanced at the doe. "I never did. When we meet again, I'll tell you." And that was when she disappeared around a corner, leaving Judy in a confused state of mind alone with her thumping leg. _Zootopians…_

With a huff of annoyance, she followed her steps back and got the front of Bogo's office, an office that she didn't want to be even close to but when one was robbed of a rational choice then nothing could be done about it. With a heavy gulp and slight touches on the inside of her ears that felt kinda itchy, she attempted to knock onto the sturdy door but halted as voices came from inside, as if someone else than the buffalo was in there which got her to freeze and take a step back.

There was no way in hell that she was to interrupt her boss in the middle of a conversation or meeting, not after her previous dreadful encounter which still made her heart to tremble in fear as the mammal inside that office was the mammal who held her future in his hooves. The threat that he would send her badge for scrap made her to instinctively try and protect the shiny metal from inexistent doom, or was it as such.

The choice to wait it out was taken as she climbed on top the bench that faced the office's door and she leaned against the cool wall with an accompanied tired sigh. She really wanted the day to end as her mind was just exhausted to the last neuron. Everything that had happened with her and Nick had just mentally drained her as well as physically and she just craved for a good night's sleep.

Her eyes widened and her mouth opened as she stared at the nothingness as her eyes lost their focus. "Ohhh nooo…" she cried out and plopped her head onto her paws as she suffered from the realization that she needed to search for a place to live in, a place that she wouldn't get killed or robbed at, a place that could be at least affordable. Just trying to think about how she would fix the problem made her annoyed and angry as her temper was thinning because of the strain she had to go through the incredibly disgusting day, a day that maybe was possibly worse than the one she got beaten by Duke.

Judy pushed her head against the wall and just stared at the weak lamp, emptying her mind in the process and halting her thoughts to such an extent that she was just gawking mindlessly. It was like she wasn't there even if she was and that gave her peace at last.

That peace was broken when the large door opened and creaked under the unoiled hinges, grabbing Judy's attention and getting her mind to work again after who knows how much time of pure mindlessness. The grasp of reality made her a bit disoriented and she tried to find out why she was even there. She managed to notice Bogo who glanced at her for a moment with a very big scowl which immediately faded into existence as a small ewe, slightly smaller even than Judy walked out of the office with a small folder in her hooves.

The ewe was immediately recognized by Judy as Bellwether, the deputy mayor of Zootopia. Judy knew her because she was the mammal who had pinned her beautiful badge on her chest on the graduation ceremony. It was the happiest moment of her life and the encouraging words she had received from the ewe, after her achievement was on her, had made her heart to flutter from bliss.

Seeing Bellwether made her blood to fill with energy, and excitement got her to hop off the bench and dash close to the unsuspecting ewe who almost dropped the folder from unexpected shock, laughing it off after seeing the harmless bunny who was smiling widely at her with huddled together paws.

"You're going to give me a heart attack, silly!" joked the jovial ewe behind who was the Chief with crossed arms and disgruntled expression, but Judy's resolve to speak with the mammal who had pinned her dream onto her was stronger that the buffalo's attempt of discouragement.

"I'm sorry Assistant-Mayor Bellwether… It's just that… I'm excited to see you here… After all, you gave me my badge. Remember?" the doe spluttered incredibly fast, making the ewe to develop a nervous smile as her green eyes darted around the over-enthusiastic doe.

"Ahhh… yes, of course I do," she returned somewhat unconfidently and hesitantly but because of the excitement that had overruled Judy's body, the doe didn't notice. "You were…. Gilly! Right?" Bellwether asked and Judy's ears almost fell if she hadn't forced them to stand tall and keep them away from the betrayal they had attempted. The fact that the ewe didn't remember her name managed to slightly wound her spirit but she contemplated that the deputy-mayor had much on her hooves so it was normal for her to forget, probably.

"Uhm, it's Judy," she corrected with a lesser smile as Bellwether rocked a fist in the air.

"Right! I was close…"-a nervous laugh escaped her lips while the Chief rolled his eyes and huffed loudly to himself-"so, Judy. How does it feel being a real cop? Is the department been treating you well?" came the question that made the Chief's eyes to widen and Judy's nose to wiggle in angst. She wanted to tell the ewe everything, from her humiliating first day of being a meter maid, to the day where she was beaten up for actually following the law but then she met the piercing glare that the Chief was sending her, a glare that made her breath heavy and muscles tight.

She wanted to express her fears and pain but this was not the time nor it was the mammal, thus she lowered her gaze to her feet and instantly, she mustered some leftover energy to create a façade which would accompany her false words. "It has been incredible! So many opportunities to develop myself and so many ways to help zootopians to live safely and peacefully. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else," the way she had said it managed to get Bogo's eyes to twitch and as well as to get him to bare his teeth as he had detected the sarcasm in her words, while the ewe was clueless and took them in their normal context as she bounced on her feet happily.

"That's great to hear"-she looked around herself-"as much as I enjoy talking, Judy, I need to get back to the office real soon. Lionheart is expecting these," she explained even if she didn't need to, her naivety radiating very hard from her as she glanced at the small folder she was holding.

"Of course… It was nice meeting you!" Judy said, receiving a hum as the ewe bounced towards the stairs. She felt somewhat happy, seeing such a friendly mammal in the city after so many bad encounters. But the ahem that came behind her killed all the glee within her as she turned around to meet the fuming expression of Bogo who was just glaring at her without peeling a single word, glaringthat she despised even more than Duke himself.

With a despondent sigh, she carefully walked towards the office while looking only and only at the ground. As she entered and headed towards the chairs, heavy footsteps followed her suit with the accompanied loud bang of the door which made her jump and gasp as the sound had managed to get her heart to go into hysteria. She didn't like this one bit and the frustration was just making her angry, angry at her, angry at Nick, angry at her boss and angry with almost anything that crossed her path. Her blood was poisoned with anger and that was very inconvenient as it had manifested upon her very visibly.

She sat on the chair while waiting for Bogo to do the same and as he did, he did it in the most loudly possible way, getting it to creak against his weight and screech against the movement forward. She looked directly at him but what she didn't know that the manifested anger had made her scowl and when Bogo saw that, he hit the desk with all his might which made her to flinch and her muscles wanted to push her back against the chair's cushions as they trembled but she remained still with a twitching nose.

His lips flicked, his breath stopped and for a moment, she was sure that he would say something but he remained silent while visibly holding his breath. _When will this torture end!_

The exhale that came about was heavy and she actually felt the hot air brush against the top of her head, making her fur to tickle and get her to want to scratch the spot but the Chief's glare was paralyzing her whole existence. But at long last, at long last the buffalo spoke. "Explain yourself," he ordered in a very soothing tone, so soothing that it got her to nose and mouth to quiver in trepidation.

She didn't have a single clue to why he was asking her of that but then again, she was in radio silence for quite a while and maybe that was it. That had to be it. Taking a deep breath, she began, "I saw a red fox acting strange and followed him around so I could be sure. I got out of radio range and forgot to report. But I managed to apprehend the perp as he had a bag filled with white pills. I know I broke the rules of engagement but nothing bad happened and I captured him!" she explained without the details of how she almost broke mentally at that moment of heart to heart at that attic but nobody needed to know, nobody but her.

His unchanged expression gave her the idea that what was said had not been enough, thus she breathed in deeply and continued, "The fox is in the cells and the evidence has been given for examination. That is everything, Chief." But his stoic expression remained as such which made her feel the need to hug herself as to bring some comfort within her exhausted self.

But it seemed that Bogo's façade was starting to break as his lips began curling. "Name?" he asked as his voice almost cracked under the pressure of his discontent.

For a moment she didn't understand the question but figured it out as her quick thinking came in. "Uhm, Nick Wilde, Sir. I can go and inte—" the heavy grunt managed to get her to close her mouth midway and to lower her paws to herself as the Chief's neutral scowl turned bigger as he reached for the intercom and grabbed the earphone while pushing a few buttons, huffing and rubbing the fur on his forehead meanwhile.

Judy didn't know what to do at that moment, thus pulled a drooped ear and started caressing the pink flesh inside, feeling slightly better at the touch as her whole self was being tormented at the agonizing moments with her boss. Managing to bring some comfort from the calming touches she was granting upon herself, her heart lowered its pace considerably.

But the pampered ear sprung into action as the Chief began talking, "Status on detainee, Nick Wilde…" Excitement prevailed within the grey doe as the Chief was personally taking interest in her work. "He already has? Good…"

Bogo's eyebrows huddled together and his voice cracked, "He wants WHAT? Does he have anything against us?" Bogo began drumming his fingers on the sturdy desk and his teeth began grinding onto one another audibly, making the doe to wince and ears to droop.

"What about the evidence?" A moment passed and the Chief's eyes widened in shock as he leaned against the desk and shouted from the top of his lungs, "RELEASE HIM IMMEDIATELY!" The intercom was smashed against the Chief's fist as he released the steam from his nose and stood up, pacing behind his desk with arms behind his back, while Judy was staring in disbelief at what had just happened as the last words had managed to freeze her blood with confusion.

 _Release him? But what about the evidence!_ Bogo glanced at the doe and stopped for a moment, pointing at her while his mouth was widely opened but no words managed to squeeze through as he grunted and went to take his seat, plopping his head into his hooves as he let out an exhausted sigh.

"Hopps," he almost whispered in defeat but then his gaze met hers and she could see the blazing rage in his brown eyes, eyes that made her to gasp quietly from tingling fear. "YOU ARE THE MOST INCOMPENTENT OFFICER I'VE EVER MET!"

The words smashed against her body and her mind became fuzzy, disabling her from speaking normally. "S-s-ir, I d-d-d…"

"SILENCE!" he bellowed and leaned closer towards the speechless doe. "Not showing up for work properly. Taking police equipment without authorization. Breaking the rules of engagement and detaining a fox. A god damn fox!"

The venomous words made her blood blighted again with anger as her rooted connection with Nick still managed to get her fired up when prejudice was aimed at him. "It doesn't matter if he is a fox!"

"It doesn't matter? He wants to sue the department because of your recklessness and insubordination!" He grabbed both ends of the desk and almost stood up from the arisen agitation but the bunny was starting to fume as well because all that was being said didn't make a drop of sense to her, which fueled her resolve to defend herself from the lies.

"I did as I was ordered and patrolled the streets that I was told to!" she retorted strongly, trying with all her energy to restrain herself from raising her voice.

"By whom?" the Chief probed and tilted his head while his teeth were being exposed by his twitching lips.

"By you, Chief." Bogo's eyes narrowed together and he seemed to look like he was thinking.

But then, his expression turned into slight worry as he asked the question that managed to get Judy fired up. "Hopps, are you on medication?"

"I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!" she yelled and stood on the chair as she exposed her buck teeth to the buffalo who immediately sat up viciously.

"DON'T YOU RAISE YOUR VOICE AT ME! SIT DOWN BEFORE I THROW YOUR ASS OUT!" he snapped, making the room to shake from his rough tone.

Her ears were ringing and her heart was racing at the speed of light. She was frustrated to the core and had lost her cool, which had made her unstable. Managing to get herself in check while her fists trembled from the heated stress, she sat slowly, and with a scowl looked at the Chief who had the most terrifying expression that she had seen in her entire life.

Bogo sat himself slowly without breaking eye contact or blinking and very calmly asked again, "Who?"

Forcing her voice, she began plainly, "Sergeant Thane Songdog told me to take a cruiser and patrol the given west region of Savanna Central. I was told that at midday I am to return and get a partner with whom I am to resume my duties," she explained calmly with details as it seemed that the Chief wanted to know everything, yet she wasn't ever going to tell him about what had happened before and after the chase with Nick, never.

The buffalo, leaned against his comfortable chair with a very heavy sigh and rubbed the space between his eyes. "You even believe yourself… Why they always send the crazy ones to me…" he mumbled the last part despondently but her ears had caught onto it which made the pit in her stomach to deepen as she felt wounded even more severely by her boss's words.

"It's the truth!" she confirmed firmly with a begging voice as to try and get to her boss but he actually had lost his anger which had turned into actual and manifested exhaustion.

"Like when you beat up your superior yesterday… Just…" The groan that escaped his mouth echoed through the room and it seemed that he was losing his drive to keep this up. "And now you've brought me this fox who wants to sue us. He can turn this into a circus because of your ineptitude."

She didn't have the slightest idea why Bogo was being frustrated at the fact that she had brought Nick in with the incredible amount of evidence. "Sir, what do you mean? He had in possession hundreds of unidentified pills!"

Bogo's hooves clenched into fists as he yelled, "Hundreds of pills of VITAMINS! This is ludicrous and idiotic!"

Judy's world wrecked upon her, her grasp upon reality was being twisted and turned which made her feel pain inside her body, pain that stung as if a spear had forced itself in while swiveling around. Her mind was shrugging the information off and trying to hold her current position, a position that she fought over with tears and pain. But now, now everything was turning around and doubt resurfaced again about Nick's motives. Did he want her to fail, did he want to take advantage of her when she did? What did he actually want? Was what the Chief had said true? Where did the lies end!

She could see where this was heading to and she needed to use everything in her power to make Bogo not to do what he was about to. She had gone through so much, had sacrificed so much time and energy and that to be taken away just like that in a matter of weeks? She couldn't accept it, she didn't want to accept it.

"Chief, if that is true than I had made a mistake but I couldn't have known. Every other officer would've done the same in my position," she tried to argue her case with reason but reason was not something the buffalo was keen on.

"I won't be having unqualified officers running around my Precinct and doing whatever they want to. I would let myself be devoured by maggots before letting you continue to bring more chaos upon my department!"

Judy's mind was racing, searching for a way to hold on before the tidal wave would sweep her into the unknown, into the abyss. She was tricked by someone into failing her duties, she was manipulated into failure, she was misguided and used. But what mattered was that she was to remain a police officer and if Nick had to pay the price for his misdoings then he was going to do that.

She quickly reached for the carrot pen from her duty belt and put her finger on the plastic button. "Chief, I have more evidence that will ge—"

"Not another word," Bogo interjected with authority and stood up violently, pushing the chair and making it to squeal in a weak resistance. The Chief got to the door and took a look outside while the grey do stood motionlessly with her carrot pen in the air while her nose wiggled in despair. He didn't want to hear anything she had to say, he didn't care what she may have or could have. He wanted to get rid of her and that began chipping away her resolve, it was making it rotten.

But she needed to try, she wanted to try. "Sir, if yo—"

"Shut your tiny little mouth now!" he spat and sat on his chair. The doe didn't see any other choice but the choice to listen. She could play the recording if that was the only thing that would save her skin as to bring salvation upon her future.

"I gave you a chance. The results you showed at the academy were incredible. But it seems that being a good student has nothing to do with actually being good at your job as you've shown me as well as well as your co-workers. I don't know why I even listened to that coyote because you only managed to bring us so much more crap in just a single day."

The last sentence grabbed her attention as the words had some deeper meaning. She remembered when Thane exited the office as she was going to talk with Bogo about her act of justice. She needed to listen to understand, needed more information.

"You were supposed to be out of my sights as of yesterday but I made a mistake. And now that mistake could cost the department reputation and money. I won't be having this!"

There it was. It was all planned, it was a scheme. That was the reason why she hadn't been fired yesterday, they wanted to cover up what had happened that day and now he was trying to cover up her small mistake with Nick, a mistake that now seemed so surreal. The doubt within her mind got her to put her pen in her pocket as she could see that even if she gave Bogo the additional evidence, he wouldn't care. He wanted her out and nothing would save her, nothing.

She knew what the next word was going to be and her lugs went into panic as her whole purpose was going to be robbed off her in a matter of seconds. Her mouth trembled and her eyes quivered but she managed to shout strongly, "You can't do this to me! I've sacrificed so much to get here! You can't!"

Bogo extended his hoof towards the doe as she put both her paws upon the shiny object as to protect it from the doom that was to come. The Chief's lips twitched and his eyes burned with annoyance as his breath became heavier.

"Badge!" he voiced sternly and Judy winced, pushing herself towards the chair's cushion and breathing as if she was running for her life. He wanted to take her achievement, her pride, her dream. He wanted to destroy her life, he wanted to destroy her purpose and her body was telling her to run, to flee and protect that metal object of accomplishment but the tendrils of fear and shock had paralyzed her entirely.

"C-c-chief, p-p-ple—"

"BADGE!" he yelled and stood up, enforcing his authority through his towering figure and tough exterior.

She could feel the pressure in her eyes that was trying to leak, she could feel insecurity because she didn't know what to do. Ideas came that told her to beg, to plead for another chance. She was sure that she wouldn't make a single mistake if she was just given another chance. Was it so hard for him to just let her do her job. Hell, she would do cleaning duty for as long as it takes but she just wanted to remain an officer, a police officer. Why was everyone against her, why even the mammal she grew to trust betrayed her. But how did he actually betray her?

She didn't have time to think about Nick's motives as her head was swimming in confusion and fear. She needed to save her job but nothing came to mind, nothing.

"More insubordination? Typical rabbit. If you don't paw me your badge, I will arrest you. Do you understand, Hopps?" he put the threat on the table, which got her eyes to widen as Bogo's voice turned actually normal and he didn't seem so emotional as before. She didn't have a foundation to step on anymore, she didn't have anyone in the city nor anything. Her badge was the only thing that was precious to her in Zootopia, of course it became as such after Nick's betrayal.

 _Nick… what would you have done…_ With a shivering paw, she gently unpinned the shiny metal from her vest and stared at it with grief. She could see her reflection upon it, she could see the embedded words that seemed rather delusional to her after everything she had gone through, after going through so much crap that just her colleagues had thrown at her for doing the job she was supposed to.

"C-c-can y-y-ou please… n-n-not m-m-melt it…" she pleaded as she handed the small shiny prop into Bogo's hoof. But he only grunted in response as he put her pride on his desk.

"Give your duty belt, weapons, pads and vest to Clawhauser. You can keep the uniform, a gift from the department for getting out of my fur," he ordered plainly but strictly as she looked at him in open disbelief. Her body was motionless, her thoughts were blocked and she was stuck in a time warp, feeling as if her existence had just ended. But her brain was still refusing to accept the new fact, the new reality. Just like what had happened with Nick but this was somewhat worse. She had been building her dream for years on end while her relationship with Nick wasn't even close to that.

Memories of the past of how she would endlessly train and study resurfaced and she lost track of reality as she swam in the memories of yesterday, memories that dazzled away by Bogo's gruff voice. "Get out, now."

She didn't want to go out, she wanted to remain a cop but her body submitted and began moving towards the closed door that was opened by Bogo shortly after. She didn't want to look at him, she didn't want to do anything anymore. Her mind was still keeping things together but the grim reality was starting to kick in and her heart began panicking, making her breaths more desperate as she exited the office of crushed dreams

"Better go back to those fields, Hopps. You can't be so helpless at least at that if it's in your blood," Bogo had a final say and closed the door with just a simple click.

Maybe she was only good for that, maybe you couldn't escape from what you were, maybe Nick was right all along…

As now no one was watching her, her legs felt weak and she slinked close to a wall as to support herself while the pit in her stomach reached unexplored levels, getting her breaths to feel empty which were making her mind disoriented and her vision blurred. She was in a state of denial and things were starting to slowly kick into her system which meant that she needed to get out before the breaking point, the point where she would be open the world and vulnerable to the bone. She couldn't allow herself that, she had to get out.

Using the wall as support, she began limping towards the stairs while there was that feeling of extra weight behind her, as if she was pulling chains, chains that were becoming heavier and heavier with each passing moment. The emotional pain got her to whimper quietly and to squeeze her eyes shut as to not let her lilacs to show her vulnerability, her weakness. She had to be strong, had to escape.

The walk down the stairs was a slow and agonizing one and now she was facing the door that lead to the lobby, a place where she was certain that there would be mammals, mammals who probably by now knew what had happened as she was sure that the door at Bogo's office wasn't soundproof. She had to be swift and try to remain calm but her denial grew weaker and her will followed suit, getting her to fall on her knees and grab her heart as it was unhealthily beating against her ribs. A few more whimpers escaped her dry lips, lips that felt like a desert but she managed to stand up and prepare for her last effort, her last moments of being a cop, her last stand.

Judy opened the door with the need of a lot of strength and when she did, the sight of the lobby just dazed her mind as there were many officers around the place, all of them chit-chatting about random stuff. She couldn't believe that so many would see her crestfallen state, her failure, her weakness. The idea of being seen made her limbs to want to follow her steps back but she pushed forwards. This needed to be done here and now, she could feel her resolve tip-toeing on the edge with her denial as well and it was just a matter of time when she would break entirely.

Weakly and unconfidently she got to Clawhauser's desk and began removing everything but her uniform that the Chief was so 'understanding' of letting her keep. The cheetah noticed her when she threw the belt on the desk and leaned over it as to see her. She didn't even glance at him, just kept removing her gear while her mind was blank, letting her run on autopilot because if she began thinking it would just squash her.

"Judy, what happened?" Ben asked but she didn't even register his words as she threw her pads at him, hitting him on the nose which he grabbed in shock but that didn't seem to falter his anxiety. "Did you get fired?!" he accidently shouted, grabbing the attention of all the officers in the lobby who were now staring at the doe whose eyes were widely opened.

 _Fired…_

Her nose began twitching and her breaths were now actually suffocating her as she began looking around herself frantically in search for an exit, for an escape.

 _Fired…_

She tried to run but her legs felt as if they were in concrete blocks while she tottered slowly towards the exit of Precinct One. It was just before her, not so far away, just within reach and she could fall into despair at last, to grieve and let it all out. Bottling it was starting to make her fickle and the denial was almost going to fade away. She was going to make it, she was already half way through.

But then came the voices, the whispers and the shouts. "That the new bunny? Fired already…"

"Do they really send us such unskilled cadets from the academy, fucking shame."

"I always said that prey rodents aren't fit for serious professions. Fucking rabbits wanting to be something more."

"Bob, isn't that the bunny that was covered in shit the day before?"

"Dis aint a fucking playground…"

Her steps were getting heavier and her eyes wider, the protective moisture having dried out as she wasn't blinking. The words were getting to her and were chipping at the concrete she had erected to shield herself from the hate, from the misery. But it was being chipped away very quickly, very relentlessly.

"Pay up, Bill. Told ya she aint lasting even 2 weeks."

"Worthless squeaker!"

"This isn't a circus meter maid, your place isn't here!"

"If you thought we'd ever trust a bunny than you're even more retarded than you look!"

"You thought you'd hug the criminals to death? Go check yourself."

"Failure…"

"You can't be something that you obviously are unfit for, cutesey."

"Cute little bunny…"

"Aww, is she gonna cry now…"

"Disgrace to the uniform…"

Judy was now shaking idly in the middle of the lobby. She was staring at the clean floor and her eyes were on fire, her limbs were limp and the only thing that was holding her on her two feet was her sheer will, will that was almost going to fade away, will that seemed to be losing its reign to despair. She wanted to fall down and curl into a ball as the words of her ex co-workers were getting to her hard, so hard that she wanted to actually cease existing.

First it was her insertion into the real world, then it was Nick's betrayal and now, now this was the tip of the iceberg. She couldn't take it anymore, she didn't want to take it anymore. Why did the world have to be so cruel and filled with so much injustice. Why did she have to pay the price for trying to make things right, to fix them. Why did bad things happen to those that tried to fight them, why…

 _Failure…_

She had failed herself and nothing could be done about that. She had failed her long-deceased friend, a friend who she had made a promise when she was young, a promise that now was forcefully broken, the glass now being everywhere on the floor and there was no way that she would be able to fix it anymore. This was the worst kind of breakdown for her as she had never experienced such, having always persevered against all odds, having forsaken the life of a farmer and having taken the huge risk of attempting of becoming something more, something greater, something important.

It was a partial yet fruitless success tho and she now understood it. All those years of training and learning were now gone to waste, all of that in the blink of an eye, all gone. All was for nothing…

 _Cute little bunny…_

Maybe she was just a cute bunny and nothing more than that. If she couldn't hold her emotional breakdown, was she really something more than the racial stereotype? Nick had told her to embrace what mammal's told her she was and now she actually began to start considering it, she actually began accepting it which managed to stir more conflict upon her tired mind, mind that had suffered enough throughout the day and wanted to rest so much.

 _Disgrace to the uniform…_

Maybe she was a disgrace, a naïve good-for-nothing country bunny, a bunny that didn't know anything and only shamed the ZPD with her presence. Maybe she was destined to be just a carrot planting farmer. Maybe her destiny was to settle down and just live her life in simple peacefulness. Maybe that was the only way for her, the only rational choice in such an irrational world.

She couldn't take it anymore, the whispers and voices of the mammals around her were starting to madden her, her ears were managing to detect every echo, every sound, every word. The crowd around her felt as if it was judging her relentlessly as if she was a black duck, as if she was a killer, a freak of nature…

 _Freak…_

Memories shuffled into her head within the already dire cacophony that was reigning within. She hated those memories, she despised them but the words that she was hearing just made her more and more susceptible, more defenseless, more exposed.

Her glistering lilacs trembled under the sore stinging on the outer layer of her eyes, her lips quivered as she hugged herself as to try and bring some comfort within, to try and stifle the coldness that was beginning to overtake her body, coldness that had entered her bloodstream. Her heart clenched under the immense pressure that was never experienced before, it clenched so hard that she thought it was going to explode inside of her. Her nose began filling with mucus as the quiet whimpers began originating from her throat, whimpers that she was managing to hide as her jaw was being forced shut by her exhausted muscles.

Surrender was imminent, she couldn't escape, her body was irresponsive, her emotions had taken over and she needed to let go, she needed someone to help her, someone to comfort her, someone to bring calmness within her, some peace, some composure.

But there was no one, she had lost that mammal when the choice was made to apprehend him, to betray him as he did to her, yet nothing made sense anymore. His bag was filled with vitamins, his body had betrayed his words. She couldn't think about it, her mind was incapable as the noise was beginning to bring her a headache and moisture began forming in the corners of her eyes, moisture that she wanted so much to stop but it was impossible to hold it back anymore, it was futile, it was a trivial pursuit.

Just as she was about to let go and fall to the ground and lay in the puddle of her sorrow until she couldn't no more, light steps were registered behind her and a very warm and gentle paw grabbed her shoulder. The known smell of musk managed to get to her blocked nose, getting her breaking point to extend a bit as she felt slight safety and comfort. The paw squeezed her shoulder and she sensed the heat of another close to her head but she didn't dare glance at the mammal's direction, she didn't know if she could take it, she was sure she wouldn't be able to.

The mammal's hot breath brushed the fur on her cheek with the soothing and very gentle voice that was familiar enough following suit, "Don't let them see that they get to you."

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

\- HA! After 4 months I made it to the chapter I've been longing to write about! But wait, there is more! Nothing stops this train, only if someone breaks my hands or neck. Comparing it to the 1st draft and seeing the difference, just wow! What'll happen next? 'Starts rubbing hands into each other with a wide smirk.'

\- **Music while writing:** _MEGAHERZ – Himmelsstürmer_

\- **Latest edit:** 22.10.2017

\- **Tumblr:** _markovas_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_


	21. Purpose

**Purpose**

* * *

"Don't let them see that they get to you," were the quiet words that entered her ears, words that managed to stop her breath entirely while she stared at the floor with bafflement. Her emotional wreckage halted for the moment as other thoughts went through her and were beginning to link to each other with solidity. She didn't want to glance at him, not after what had happened but her heart bashed viciously inside once and that got her to exhale a very depleted breath.

With trembling lips, she dared to look at the mammal who by all known accounts was responsible for the outcome of her misery yet that wasn't entirely true but her attempt was met with unsuccessfulness because her head just felt like a giant rock. Bogo had accidently or intentionally let it out, it was all planned from the day she chose to not follow her corrupted thoughts, from the day when she smashed her foot in Duke's throat. She wanted to know why Nick had done what he had done because what was said in the attic didn't seem genuine to her anymore, it didn't seem logical, not after all the mixed signals he unintentionally gave out and her finding of the actual contents of the bag.

But she couldn't think clearly, the well of suffering was overflowing and she needed to let it out as it was suffocating her entirely, she needed to get out, she needed to escape. The voices were getting more and more vile, more disgusting and abominable which made her knees to tremble and just like that she felt her energy to extinguish. But she didn't fall because Nick moved next to her and put his paw on her other shoulder, pulling her into him and supporting her weak body that was drained incredibly. She didn't resist even if she wanted to as there was just no will to do so anymore, there was no point.

Surprisingly, she felt the warmth comforting while his scent managed to work wonders upon her raging mind even after everything that had happened. Hope still persevered after all the disgust and pain, hope had moved in and built its foundations and it was expanding rapidly as all the recollections started contradicting the false reality that seemed to be true not so long ago.

She sensed his soft paw to squeeze her shoulder and she tried to grab it but her arms felt limp as the voices weren't stopping, they weren't going away. But then, then a growl originated from above her head with the accompanied words of the red fox who was embracing her from falling into the puddle of instability.

"SHUT UP, you fucking SAVAGES!" Nick bellowed from the top of his scorching lungs while his soothing and gentle voice became rough and deeply distorted. His paw pulled her harder to himself while his claws dug into the fabric of her light-blue shirt, probably in an attempt to hold her in his grasp and not let her fall because of her weak state.

The strange part about all of that was that she wasn't feeling pain from his actions, the protective gesture made her shivers to mildly reduce their intensity as a small amount of comfort entered her body while his warmth managed to stop her extinguishing fire from dying out. She quickly mused that it was derived from the protective predator who was yet again redirecting the hate from her to himself while not letting her fall into despair and unresponsiveness in front of many who would love nothing more but to see her do so.

Nick's stance became of one of readiness and from the top of her deliquefied eyes, she could blurrily see his bared teeth and his trembling lips while her ears caught his rumbles that quietly escaped his throat with increasing intensity. But there was something on his creamy fur on the underside of his muzzle, something just as reddish as his fur if not even darker. But what was it doing there?

That got her to dare to glance up because of morbid curiosity and what she saw dried her throat and shocked her core. His nose had dried streams of blood that had flowed down towards the underside of his muzzle, staining the white fur with dark red, and onto his shirt and tie. He looked terrifying and murderous in the state that he was in, in a state that she didn't leave him in. What had they done to him down there and why? A hard beat inside of her chest got her to whimper and lose her balance but Nick's paw was holding her unrelentingly and that was what saved her from crumbling to the ground.

Someone had done that to him, someone from the Precinct and she was responsible for it because she had taken him in. In a futile attempt of finding the one that had done that to the vulpine, she blurrily examined the disgusting crowd of officers who were totally silent. She noticed through her distorted vision that some had reached for their duty belts while others stood with mouths hung-agape, including those that were way taller and twice as wider than the fox besides her.

But there was not a drop of fear within her even if there was a rumbling predator glued to her side. No, it was that same feeling that she remembered when they were in that van, that feeling of being cared for, for being looked after. It was extremely pleasant and it managed to increase the height of the walls of her chipped dam that began filling slowly towards the newer heights.

And then came the memories of his hateful words and actions that led to her getting indescribably hurt. Her mind way yelling at her to get away from him, to sever all ties and persevere through all the crap herself but this time her heart took charge because of all the contradictions he had made against himself. Hope began extending towards new horizons and it would spread into something more because of his choice to give her support.

"Is that what you do in here? You gang up on your own and try to get them to feel lower than dirt?! Even murderers have higher standards than you thugs!" His words actually made her brain to stop working because they were absurdly unexpected which got her to stare at him with widely opened eyes.

"Don't taunt us you red bastard," chimed in a male elephant officer who visibly had one of his beige horns broken.

But Nick didn't seem intimidated as Judy could feel his aggressiveness to manifest around the both of them like a barrier, like an invisible shield. A hard exhale from his part forced some unclotted blood out from his nose to fall on Judy's cheek, staining her silver fur with the warm red which's scent found its way inside with the smell of iron getting her already twitching nose to double its efforts. This kind of cruelty was unacceptable to her, it was evil but what was more important were his words and his body language. He seemed furious, he seemed hurt and his cool was just absent.

"Or what? You'll further beat me up?! Let's see how that will work in court." His state and words managed to get the confidence of the crowd to plummet considerably as no one said anything in return.

"You are supposed to serve and protect. If you can't do that to your own colleagues, than what the hell are you doing here in the first place!? You are spitting onto the most honest mammal probably in the whole Precinct. The bravest and toughest!"

 _Honesty…_ Yes, she was an honest mammal but maybe that was her weakness? Maybe she should've just followed the choices of others before her like Nick had said. Maybe honesty wasn't something to be proud of… maybe… She was in shock and as she saw Nick's blazing jades as well as felt his stressed muscles it appeared that there was no deceit and she could sense his emotional instability from his cracking voice, betraying body and trembling eyes.

"She isn't weak or a freak. She is more than capable of being a cop than half of you because she has a big heart unlike this whole fucking city." His voice echoed through the lobby and silence befell it shortly after. Only the passing cars from outside could be faintly heard while from the inside there was not even a cough or whisper, just the usual white-noise.

Nick grabbed the top of his muzzle and rubbed it in annoyance. "But how can you get it? When you are all corrupted to the core with prejudice that makes you blind." The crowd began whispering as some seemed to be getting tired of Nick's relentless and truthful onslaught.

"It's not that she doesn't deserve you. You don't deserve HER! You fucking prejudiced shortsighted bastards!" The words entered her system and creeped into her heart, mending some of the cracks that were made by him and everything else. The pain reduced slightly but that wasn't enough, she was still an emotional wreckage ready to explode.

"Enough of the fox!" a hog officer with scars from bullets on his muzzle began advancing upon Nick who immediately put his tail instinctively around Judy as well as angling his body in front of her, hiding half of hers with his.

But the advancing hog was stopped by a familiar white coyote with a scruffy weasel by his side. Judy, being half obscured by Nick's body and tail managed to spot Duke instantly, more importantly his bloodied bandages around his neck as well as his slightly stained blue shirt. That got her to quickly link the dots and grasp Nick's warm tail with her still-shivering paws. Things were beginning to take shape and were creeping towards sense and realizations.

"Here for more, Wilde? And what's this? Trying to make her feel better so you can dig in later? Not impr—"

"Fuck you, Wazelton!" Nick spat, getting the weasel to growl weakly because of his recent injury but that didn't stop him from reaching for his taser but Nick's next words hit their mark first before any action managed to spring into existance.

"Want Koslov to find more about your hobbies?" Was his plain to most retort but not to Duke whose anger just vanished, replaced with visible dread as his body shook for a moment while he took a step closer to Thane and moved his now-nervous gaze elsewhere.

But the mammal that first tried to apprehend Nick seemed to have had enough as he shouldered his way through, pulling his taser out and beginning to close the distance between the two agitated mammals who were both unstable in their own way.

Judy could see where things were heading and tried to stop the escalation but her throat felt sore and her legs weak, thus she did the only thing that came to mind and grabbed the side of Nick's shirt, pushing her head against it as to try and get him to understand, to walk away, but nothing like that happened, as he actually tried to get away from her grasp and ready himself as his claws were widely apart from each other and his eyes darted around the large amount of space.

Things were going to get grim pretty soon and she was powerless, she was meek, therefor she embraced his middle with all her remaining might and refused to let go even when he attempted to move her back as the officer was going to soon shoot the probes of pain at him but she couldn't let him go through more pain because of her, because she just knew what it was like. And with the recent revelations of his intentions, she just couldn't hold the grudge, not against her heart even if the stain of betrayal being still-present within. The information wasn't adding up and his words that he had pierced her with, they now sounded hollow, they sounded forced and fake, they were replaced by those that he had just uttered.

She tried to pull him away, to make him get her out of the damn place where she could feel her life energy fading away but there just wasn't any energy within, only despair, only pain. But between those was something incredible, something that she begged for since the first confrontation. And it was starting to form up more and more clearly within which was stifling the coldening of her limbs slightly but not enough because the denial of the fact that she had lost her job was soon going to disappear entirely.

With an attempt to suppress her whimpers she squeezed harder while Nick's snarl widened and he seemed to be lost in rage, rage that had overtaken him and had made his thinking muddled incredibly. This was irrational from his part and that increased the hope in her core further out, it was fixing what was almost broken, it was starting to mend the wounds of supposed betrayal but nothing was yet certain and it would never be if he got himself in irreversible trouble in a place where he could be framed for whatever the officers chose to. The corruption inside the establishment of order and integrity was so strong that she felt worried about his life as well, understanding that his bloodied face was just a mild representation of what was usually being done behind closed doors.

"Nick…" was her whisper into his shirt but even she didn't hear herself, it was so delicate and weak. What next was going to happen was electrifying pain and she knew that she was going to share it as well but it didn't matter, it was she who was responsible for him and she let him in the paws of incompetence and hate so why not share his pain as he had shared hers.

But something unexpected happened as a loud and booming voice exploded from the 2nd floor, "What is going on down THERE?"

She dared to look up and saw Bogo's furious expression and body that was leaning over the glass railing and for a moment she thought that it would crumble from his weight and make him fall but nothing as such happened. The advancing officer had stopped just before firing his taser into the agitated fox but quickly dared to answer, "This fox here is in—"

"SILENCE! BACK TO YOUR DUTIES, NOW!" Bogo ordered with authority and many of the mammals in the crowd dispersed under the influence of submission while the advancing hog scoffed disapprovingly and glared at the smaller mammals who were both trembling from their own instabilities.

"Lucky, piece of shit…" the officer mumbled and went on his way but not before giving Nick a murderous glare which he returned as well.

They stayed like that only for a bit until she felt his tensed muscles to relax a bit to which she pulled away but without removing her grip from his shirt as her legs were just too tired and drained. A heavy sigh escaped the tod's lips and he groaned in exhaustion. "Come on… Let's go," he gently asked of her and with his help, they slowly walked towards the exit of Precinct One, an exit that she would probably see for the last time in her life, an exit that meant the end of her future and dream, an exit to the unknown.

The door was pushed by the red vulpine and the cold breeze brushed through the fur on her head, there was no blinding light or warmth from the sun. The sky was dark-blue and the streets were lightened by the tall lamps that overlooked from above. She didn't like the cold as it was still present in the end of her limbs as well as the outer parts of her heart, yet the fresh air managed to remove some stress from her head but just as they got to the parking lot, she stumbled and fell on her knees while she almost hit her head as well if it wasn't for Nick who caught her and kneeled beside her with both his paws on her shoulders.

It began with a sob, a hiccup to be exact and then the stress just revealed itself all around her as she slumped down towards her legs and put both her paws on her eyes. The dam at last had broken and it was all going to be let out, the pressure of doubt, pain, fear, all of it was now turned into flowing tears that damped the fur under her eyes with intensity. Her breaths were hard and labored and her body was trembling madly due to the intoxicated by weight blood. Vulnerable was how she felt, yet Nick's paws were making her feel somewhat protected, or was it just his presence?

Her paws felt wet and the moisture was now streaming down her thighs, enriching her fur and clothes with saltiness and pain but as she let more and more tears flow, the pressure became more and more bearable, it was becoming less resistant and heavy.

She didn't know how much time she stood like that and cried but when at last she had managed to stop herself from furthering the puddle under herself, she opened her glistering eyes and met those of Nick's which were actually trembling. She spotted some dampness on the fur under them as well but thought that it was just her blurry vision playing tricks on her. The problem that came about tho was that he didn't dare to be affectionate like before, as she remembered how in her apartment he hadn't hesitated to come to her when she had almost broke, unlike now when she actually had entirely broke.

He must've been feeling incredible guilt and sorrow, his words in the lobby had contradicted everything he had told her in that attic and the bag just made her even more persistent to find the truth. That's why she stood up slowly and dusted herself off while Nick released his hold and took a step back, and she noticed that he was trying to keep his distance away from her which made her eyes to tremble yet again but she was in control, for now.

"I… w-want to t-talk with you…" she tried to say strongly but it came only as a mumble as she gazed into the fox whose sad expression turned into a scowl.

"I don't thi—"

"P-please!" she begged with huddled together paws as she took a step forwards, a step that made the vulpine's tail to fall on the ground and ears to go flat against his skull. She wanted to understand why he did it even if there was a chance for her to get hurt yet again, it just meant a lot for her to find out after everything that had happened.

"Ugh, come…" he relented and motioned with his paw as to get her to move in front of him to which she almost brushed by him but he side-stepped and tingles began striking her skin, tingles of more misery because of his actions. Maybe he hated her for getting him in such a fragile position, getting him physically hurt… But then, what about his words back then? Where did the truth begin and where did the lies end?

They walked for some time while she received directions from behind until they came to a secluded small park that seemed pretty desolate from first glance but she didn't trust her eyes at that moment because of the blurriness and the darkness that wasn't thick but was enough to make her unable to see longer than several meters ahead.

Finding a bench, she saw his gesture and sat on it close to the middle and expected him to join her close but he actually sat on the other corner with some distance between them. He had kept himself away from her after they had exited the PD and that was frustrating her deeply, yet her mind was grasping why, it was probably guilt from his actions and choices that had hurt her immensely.

But what had happened had happened. What mattered was what was to come. She had lost her job and now there wasn't anything holding her back from just going home and continuing her life there. Nothing but one certain mammal, a mammal that was sitting on the same bench with her, a mammal whose next choice would dictate what would happen next, a choice with heavy repercussions.

She hugged herself and glanced at him while feeling her chilly limbs to become even so because the pressure from the recent events was still inside of her system, pressure that at least was now bearable but she didn't know when would the next wave hit if it did. But Nick's incredible seriousness was starting to scare her because she just never had seen him like this, never.

He noticed her staring and sighed in annoyance. "You wanted to talk. Talk," was his gruff response which got her to tilt her head in confusion. His gentleness was nowhere to be seen and he seemed to be closing himself in again. She needed to get to him.

"W-what happened today?" she began without breaking eye contact but he was just staring forward.

"You caught me is what happened," was his plain answer that was derived from any emotion.

The start was bad, it was as if she was talking to a mammal who didn't want to interact with her but she needed to press on, she had to continue. "W-what about the bag?!"

"I didn't know what was in it…" was his response that carried slight hesitation.

Lie. His ears fell and she caught the slip-up which slightly infuriated her. "And ab-bout me? You didn't know I w-was following you?"

"No," he deadpanned and turned away and now she could see his mildly-raised hackles.

But she wasn't having any of it and coughed, "Look at me, p-please…" was her plead to which he relented after a few moments and his half-closed eyes met her tired and blurry ones. "Y-you just happened to start talking about me when I was listening. And then you go and s-supposably make a deal with drugs? Then y-you run towards an attic?! Of all p-places?"-her heart twisted painfully-"S-stop it!" she weakly tried to yell but coughed because of her sore throat and that got her to miss his reaction as she leveled her lilacs with him, his stature was the same and he was just sitting motionlessly.

"I don't care what you want to think. Just get out of this city. There is nothing keeping you here anymore," he retorted plainly and again looked away but this time in his words, she found the double meaning. He wanted to make her leave, something had made him to try and get her out.

"All t-those mixed signals. Y-you didn't even fight back seriously up there… And then at the lobby… After everything you s-said…"-the emotional wreckage twisted her insides-"Stop l-lying!" she managed to shout out the last part and Nick actually pushed himself against the back of the wooden bench, squirming in his seat which meant that she was getting to him.

"What do you know?" he shot angrily and looked at her scornfully. "Just because you are imagining that I'm not what I am doesn't make it true. You don't think what Duke said can't happen? No one is here and no one will hear you. Go home and forget about everything before I change my mind."

His words were vicious and were said extremely threateningly, yet they sounded hollow to her ears, they didn't make a tad of sense, not after what had happened in the lobby and the linking of the facts she had achieved when in her emotional puddle of insanity. He was fake at that very moment, he was keeping his emotions at bay very well. He was in his hustler persona because of his choice of words, they weren't as personal as when he was real. And if he was trying to push her away, this was the best way to do so, to hurt her immeasurably and get her to want to sever the tie between them. That was his plan but she didn't know why. Why did he want to do that? What was the issue? Why couldn't he just tell her?

Her fiery heart began beating with increased strength but not from misery but determination of finding the truth at long last and there was one way to do it, one way that she failed to try when she let her instincts take over in that attic. She now believed in the good in him and yielded to the risk as there was nothing to lose anymore, only to gain if she was right. And oh how much she wanted to be right.

Standing up on the bench weakly, she began closing the distance between them and just as she was at paws reach from Nick, he turned to look at her and his eyes narrowed as he tried to scramble away but the end of the bench was restricting him of doing so, thus she managed to step in between his legs and grab him by the bloodied shirt while looking directly at his panicked eyes.

"G-get away from me…" he tried to resist but she held onto him as if her life depended on it but he didn't push her off or stand up, just tried flee from her glistering eyes. Some growls escaped his throat that turned into whimpers shortly after and she was certain that he was breaking up as she had.

Quickly, not wanting him to find out what she was about to do, she unbuttoned his stained with red top-buttons and met his shocked jades that found realization instantly at what she was to do but she grabbed the scruff of his neck and forced her other paw under his shirt, pushing her way through his creamy fur and towards his heart. He resisted weakly, whimpering and huffing with strain while looking away with trembling lips.

Her paw found its mark and she pushed it inwards and what she felt flushed her whole body with energy, hope and bafflement. His heart wasn't cold and apathetic like his words were, it was beating with an indescribable pace, its warmth was so welcoming to her cold limb, its ferocity was incredibly hard as it was pushing her whole paw up and down as if it was trying to escape his body. Everything was false, his heart had betrayed him and he was puffing and huffing as his warmth increased, while his chest muscles trembled under her hold but she didn't release it, she wanted to get to him to such an extent that he wouldn't see a point in continuing his charade. She was certain now, he had done everything with something in mind and the guilt of his choices was present under her paw.

"Do you think I'm a g-good-for-nothing bunny?" she asked and the rhythm of his pumper broke yet again as his lungs forced him to take a few breaths.

"Y-yes…" he squeezed out painfully but his leg began trembling as well as his eyes. His lie was caught easily.

"Do you… c-care about me?" she asked with a choked out breath.

"N…. no!" he tried to deny but his heart just exploded in contradiction while hers almost matched the pace of his because of the recent events as it hadn't reduced its pace since then, it was hard to get rid of the poisonous stress so easily. Yet, his denial was hurting her a lot as well as he wasn't cracking even if his emotions were overtaking him.

"Quit h-hiding your t-true self!" she whimpered through gritted teeth.

"I don't… I d-don't want you to believe in m-me," he retorted and started jerking. "Not after a-all I did… NO!" He began resisting and his heart was now just unhealthy, she was afraid that it would crack under the pressure of his visible fear which made hers to race as well and she needed to do something, anything.

With the paw that was holding him by the scruff of his neck, she managed to pull his arm and force his paw onto the region of her extinguishing heart. His paw was bigger than hers and it reached her shoulder as well but that was when he just stopped doing anything and just stared at the spot she had put it on. His eyes quivered as well as his vessel of life and then he began shaking in visible dissonance.

"Do you… you are h-hurting me s-so… so much, Nick…" her eyes leaked onto his restless paw while a sob escaped her mouth because this was her final attempt and it was destroying her from the inside because she knew that after it, if nothing had changed, that meant that that was it.

"I… did—… j-j-just… it was n-never meant to be like t-this." She looked at him and could see moisture on the corner of his eyes, moisture that gave her hope. "But it did! A-and I don't want to further it!"

"Then stop hurting me by p-pushing me away!" she cried out with quivering lips and his mouth just hanged open while his heart just went insane, this was the moment of truth. His own dam had broken and his eyes began leaking hard which got him to whimper and try to pull away but she pushed herself forward and met his sorrowful jades.

"I'm s-sorry… I'm s-so sorry…" he stuttered with closed eyes and her fear turned into a small smile as she pushed herself into his soft and warm neck, embracing it whole with both her paws and squeezing herself entirely into him. She had broken in and wanted nothing more but to be near him, near his warmth, near his scent, near his body.

"Don't… D-don't… I don't d-deserve any of this!" he whispered as she rubbed her damp cheeks in his soothing fur.

"I don't care…" she retorted with a small content smile while pushing her beige claws onto his skin which made his breaths a bit less sporadic.

"B-b-but-t-t…"

"P-please, just be yourself…" she pleaded as more tears soaked into his already-moist fur which got him to shiver and after a few moments he actually returned the hug, one of his paws reaching for the side of her head while the other went behind her middle while his tail went across hers as if he had put a blanket behind her. The move made her feel warm and giddy, it managed to stifle the emotional luggage enormously.

They held each other for who knows how long, both whimpering and breathing with a lot of pressure. But in the end, the affection, intimacy and gentleness persevered against all and both calmed down considerably. Judy felt at peace in the warmth of the predator who was deeply inhaling through his damaged nostrils with his muzzle over her shoulder.

With a last deep inhale in his scent-enriched neck, she weakly attempted to disengage the embrace to which he resisted for a short period but relented in the end as she moved backwards until they met eye to eye. Both of their fur under their eyes was damp and had a darker shade with the small amount of light bouncing in their glistering eyes.

Judy caressed the top of his muzzle without breaking eye contact and his eyes trembled yet again from the visible guilt he was carrying from his choices to which she knew that this was it, the moment of truth. With a heavy sigh, she pleaded in a sad tone, "Tell me everything…"

His ears fell and his tail would've done the same if it weren't for his force of control and hesitation that was etched upon him too clearly to which she scratched the skin on that same area she had caressed a moment ago with her short claws, getting him to whimper and sigh heavily. She noticed his paw that patted the seat next to him and with a grumble she accepted his wish but not without pulling his tail in front of her after having taken the seat very close to him because the night was getting latter which meant less hospitable.

"I can't do t-this anymore…"-he put his paw over his eyes for a moment-"It's e-easy with someone you don't care for but n-not…"-a labored sigh from him made Judy's ears to flick-"Look… I can't even grasp how you even want to be near me… I wouldn't if I were you!"

"Good thing you aren't," she retorted with a smirk to which he snorted but his amusement fell with the unwanted reality.

"You deserve the truth. After everything I made you go through, it's the least I could do…" Her eyes widened in focus and her ears sprung erect because this is what she craved for since the doubt had entered her and infected her system.

"Truth is you caught me off-guard… I came up with the idea when I saw you crestfallen yesterday but that wasn't what made me do it. That weasel was spying on you that night or it could've been some other mammal"-her brows huddled together-"All I know is that the sedan from when we witnessed the murder was the same. I'm certain, 100 percent." Chills jumped around her spine at this new knowledge and ideas of what it could mean, ideas that created pictures of her in a puddle of her own blood, a puddle identical to that one of the lifeless kangaroo, pictures that made her pull his bushy tail closer to her body and lungs to beg for air while looking at the ground in undesirable awareness.

"I couldn't let you stay in that department. Not with the influence they have. Not with what you had done. So the plan was to get you to catch me with supposable drugs and hurt myself in the process so I could give your superior a reason to fire you…" She glanced at him with a tilted head and twitching nose and wanted to retort but because of the fear of making him close himself, she remained silent and just followed his eyes. But the part where he mentioned hurting himself, did that mean that he had inflicted the injury on his nose on purpose?

"But the chance came too early and I wasn't prepared…"-a sad frown appeared upon him-"I had to make things on the spot and I just hurt you too much"-he suddenly met her eyes with his that were visibly filled with remorse-"You don't know how much I wanted to stop and explain things to you… But I had to do it…" She knew it, the contradictions weren't created from her imagination, they were real.

"And my fears turned into truth when Duke came in to interrogate me." His words made her ears to fall and her to grasp his tail more desperately because she could guess what had happened. The bloody bandages and threatening words… It was now just too obvious, too bitterly indisputable.

"He had stopped the camera and microphone and seemed rushed… He just paced around and yelled how I fucked up his plans of getting rid of you for good. And that just infuriated me. He was talking about killing you in the actual department… in front of ME!" he shouted and bared his teeth while growls began forming inside his throat but that didn't fire up the instigator of fear or her restrictive instincts, that made her actually feel somewhat excited, somewhat pleasantly comfortable in his presence even if it was pretty aggressive at that very moment. He was reacting as such because someone had threatened her and even if he was usually extremely collected, he had lost his control like he was doing at this very moment.

It made her feel cherished and she tried to calm him down by smoothing his disgruntled tail, an act that didn't go unnoticed by the irritated vulpine who leaned against the bench and managed to get himself in order after some moments of deep breaths. "That is when I got a bit too emotional which earned me this…" both glanced at each other as he pointed towards his bloodied nose.

"I realized that they may keep you in there despite my attempt because they wanted you actually gone… But I was surprisingly freed and the plan seemed to be done for. But then I saw you in the middle of that lobby…"

"I instantly understood what had happened and wanted to do nothing more but to just leave you be... to let you down…" he quietly finished and moved his head down as his shoulders moved forward in an attempt to hide him, a move that meant that he didn't feel good with the last sentence, not at all.

 _But you didn't… Why?_ She asked herself and prepared for the answer, an answer that made her ears so eager that the pink was now actually glowing inside the folds yet the hesitation from his part was transparent to her eyes like a cloudless sky, she could see his uneasy lips and stressed body that constantly moved as if his seat had nails underneath. She was to try and get him to relax when a heavy sigh and visible restlessness in the form of claws digging into the wood of the bench were brought forth.

His gaze was distant and it seemed like he didn't want to look at her. "But I couldn't because of the words I heard and the position you were in… it made be remember something from my past, something that I've wanted to forget since it happened…" His lips twitched and she could see his furthered indecision, he looked as if he didn't want to tell her while something was pushing him to do so. But the vulnerability was getting to him and he began whimpering with heavy huffs as he hugged himself which was her que to do something and get him to feel more at ease, at least a bit. That was when she closed the previously-restricted distance and leaned against his side as she pulled his arm and put it on both her thighs after which she rotated it and began pampering his soft black pads.

His shivering reduced and she let him collect himself as his breathing returned to normal while her own-hurt heart warmed up her body because of everything that was being disclosed to her.

"Want to know why I reacted like that in the cruiser?" His question made her ears to stand tall once more but one was trapped under his arm and remained at an angle forward. She wanted to know, this was important to her because there now was an opportunity to further things out, to do what she thought was going to be impossible when she was met with the heavy lie that was labeled as truth. Her ears gave Nick the answer and he sighed heavily as he leaned further into the bench.

"I was eight or maybe nine, and all I wanted to do was join the Junior Ranger Scouts. My mother scraped enough money and bought me brand new uniform. It was incredible, it was the happiest day in my life"-the way he said happiness sounded so bitter, so forced, so painful-"I thought I was going to fit in even if I was the only predator in the troop, the only fox…"

His voice became sorrowful and hurt and she could see that what was going to come next wasn't going to be of a happy ending so she pushed her head further into his side while not stopping her gentle motions on his paw.

"I was going to be a part of something…"-a small smile managed to appear for just a second-"part of a pack… I was so proud and naïve…" Nick pulled his arm away from her and her heart fell because she thought that he didn't want to continue but that was when she felt it on the middle of her side, his claws moving towards her stomach and pulling her towards him. Things were going well, things could work and that made her to snuggle even further into him with slight irritations that his shirt was in the way but she chased those fantasies away because a blush managed to creep onto her cheeks.

"The next night I went into the scout's headquarters where I was supposed to be accepted… They made me feel safe with friendliness and kind words as I was lured into the basement…"-a heavy exhale escaped his lips-"There they told me that a fox cannot be trusted and that I am a disgusting pelt…" Judy's fur instantly jolted up and she looked at him but there was something very disturbing that she could evidently see which at last managed to make her scared, it looked like hate, it looked like pure hate, hate that made mammals to do things that couldn't be reversed.

"Then I was beaten up and muzzled…" His lips curled, exposing his sharp ends and he tried pulling away his paw from her while he tried to make a fist be she forced him still.

He was straying away and she needed to try and get his attention to reality. "I trust you," was her retort which got Nick to swiftly look at her with raised eyebrows while his hatred faded in the blink of an eye, surely from the words that he obviously wasn't expecting to hear, words that had actually shocked him.

"You mustn't! Not after everything that I did to you! I destroyed your dream!" he shouted but his frustration just evaporated into oblivion when she began moving her nails through the fur on his arm.

"You didn't destroy my dream…" was her quiet retort and Nick managed to hear it.

"What?"

"I was supposed to be gone yesterday… But Thane had persuaded the Chief to keep me. He told me accidently. They probably were going to try and get me in an accident from what you told me," were her gloomy words obtained from the understanding that she was evidently going to lose her life sometime in the future and not in a real accident but in a conspired one. It just made a small hole inside of her which she didn't know if it was ever going to be filled. For there to be such cruelty and wickedness, never would've she guessed it, never would've she strived to become what she wanted to if she knew the bleak truth, or was wouldn't she? Now wasn't a time to decide.

Nick's attempt to make her change her mind managed to pull her out of the sinking sands of anguish. "Even so I hurt you enough! Why w—"

But she wasn't content of letting him do so and interjected with vigor, "Then I want you to promise me something…" she said while looking at his arm and playing a tuft of his fur.

After a few moments of heavy air, she slowly moved her head and met his confused eyes. A hopeful smile appeared on her and she pleaded, "Promise me… that you will never lie to me again. Whatever you might have done. Whatever!" she repeated to emphasize her most important poin.

His mouth opened as he attempted to speak but when it was met with failure he rubbed the top of his muzzle and tried again. "You are staying here?" To his question she only nodded which made his frustration etched upon his face. "You can't! They will try to kill you! There is nothing in here for you, this city is rotten to the core!"

"There is," was her retort which madly confused the tod who visibly tried to understand what she had meant and when he did, he facepawed himself with his free paw and groaned in incredible irritation which made Judy curious of his reaction.

"I knew this would happen… Why did I even explain myself—"

"I'm glad you did," she interjected and smiled at him which made his eyes to quiver and him to exhale in defeat. "Do you promise me?"

His unwillingness was obvious and he took his time before answering which meant that he was thinking about it, and thinking meant that he was taking it serious and that got her hopeful, a lot.

"I promise," he finalized and smiled at her which made her feel warm, it made her feel appreciated after everything that had happened.

His promised was real, it was personal which meant that it was the real him who had made it and now, now there were questions to be asked. "Why did you try to take away my choice… as if I'm a dumb kit. Don't you believe that I can handle myself?"

His face morphed into seriousness and he instantly retorted, "You are still a kit. What you know is just scratching the surface… Do I think you can handle yourself? Yes. Do I think that you can get yourself killed? Yes. If I'm going to take away your choice in order to prevent you from becoming a lifeless corpse, I will do everything in my power!"

"But I knew the risks and I had accepted them!" she tried to argue her case but the scoff that exited with his breath managed to further her exasperation.

"You knew? How could've you know that your colleagues are rotten? That your boss is a bias bastard who sits all day in his office and reads through falsified reports"-Judy tried to answer but he wasn't stopping-"How could've you known that you would be put on humiliating tasks like handing tickets and cleaning toilets? You saw them all in there!"-her ears fell down and Nick's expression turned into aggression-"They don't give a crap about you and would love nothing more but to spit on you because they are fucking pieces of shits! And all that is because you were just doing your job. Ha!"

This was bad, his words were heavy with the truth and they were finding shelter within her mind which was trying to push her attempts down as to try and argue. But her determined-self was still strong and she retorted, "Yet you took my choice from me… ho—"

"You had a choice!" he instantly shot back. Judy remained silent because of the bewilderment she was in. "You could've walked away or closed your eyes yet you didn't. Most of your colleagues would've done that or probably asked for a bribe. I never forced you to do anything…"

"I took an oath, how could have I closed my eyes? That would've gone against everything I believe in!"

"And look where that got you to…" he bashed in and looked at the ground while she tried to find words to use but none made any sense at all because it was true, her sense of justice and honor brought all her problems forth and she was now broken and alone, or was she alone?

"I didn't do this because of the dangers of being a cop but because you meddled with the business of mammals who never forgive…"-he began strongly-"You believe in something great… I used to believe in good as well but… ugh…" He was trailing off while trying to hide himself from her undivided attention. "You can hate me all you want. I'm used to it"-he looked at her and made a subtle smile-"I can't let someone I care for to die again…"-his lips began twitching-"when I can do something about it."

She didn't like that he was keeping his position, yet she knew that her choice wasn't forced, she always could've done something else, she could've chosen a different path but it would've been a moment when she would've forsaken herself. His words rang incredibly amount of realism, they carried weight that meant one thing. He cared for her. But why did he say that he couldn't let someone die again. Who did he lose and how? She really wanted to know but after seeing his unstable emotions that betrayed him when he finished the sentence, she decided to ask at an opportune time, time that wasn't now.

"Were the words you said in the attic and in front of Finnick true?" she probed and felt stinging in her eyes because of fear from the truth. Nick tried to remove his paw and she mused that to be an act of guilt which made her to scowl and grab it in order to stop him to which he puffed in disbelief but yielded to the determined bunny.

"No," was his strong answer as he instantly zeroed his eyes with hers. "I haven't been in such a frustrated state in quite some time… I guess it's probably because I ca..."-he nervously squirmed in his seat-"But that doesn't matter. Yo—"

"It does," she tried again to wobble his position as her nose wiggled in defiance of his choice to which he actually smirked.

"You just amaze me every time. But no, you must leave," were his words that carried incredible authority yet they didn't make her to even budge, not after everything that had happened.

His attempts of forcing her decision got her to scowl further but this time she didn't see how he could do so. "What if I don't?"

His expression became neutral, his eyes narrowed and he became cold which made her tilt her skin to tingle in trepidation. "I will eat you," was his short retort that got her mouth to slightly open and mind to try to understand his words but because they didn't make any sense, she remained in a state of mystery. And then, then there was this sort of tickling in her throat and pressure in her stomach which got her to snort, followed by tittering that she tried to stop but her body was beginning to shake violently as it was filling with joy.

That's when she stopped fighting it and began laughing out loud while clenching her stomach because of the discomfort and lack of air. He had said it with utmost seriousness yet she just knew it wasn't as such and it had just flushed her body with renewed energy, it had pushed the thoughts of failure and betrayal away, replacing them with pure life energy.

After a bit of uncontrollable laughter she looked at Nick without even bothering to remove the moisture from her eyes and for a moment saw his smile which instantly hid behind his mask that he was trying to glue back together and that made her frown.

"Stop that," she said strongly to which the reynard's eyebrow went up. "Don't hide yourself!"

With a groan and a chuckle that followed shortly after, he returned, "How can you… nevermind"-a small smile appeared upon his muzzle as he looked into the distance-"I won't force you but I beg you to leave," he finished and moved his pleading gaze at the reluctant doe who only huffed in response and crossed both her arms to which he sighed sadly and rubbed the edge of her tensed stomach.

She enjoyed the loving motion but as he did that, he brushed the side of the pocket on her pants, a pocket that carried something that she had forgotten that was on her in the midst of the last push for the ending of the lies. It was her carrot pen, a pen that now carried something insignificant, unlike before. It was something that now she saw as something that she didn't want to be near her because of her crummy experience that led to her broken dream. He didn't deserve this and she didn't want to have an edge on him, that was unlike her, that was something that could lead to more pain and pain was unacceptable anymore, not after having endured so much.

She pulled it out of her pocket and just stared at it, examining its simple design and thinking how could such an uncomplicated thing create so many complicated problems, one being her guilt that she had after having recorded him and the other one being its severity if used in front of the right mammals. She heard Nick to hmm and move his head closer to the orange pen.

"What is it?" he asked and that made her to look at him with traces of guilt as she nervously tried to find an answer to his question.

But as nothing good came, she decided to just give it to him and let him listen, that way it would be easier and she wouldn't need to stutter like an idiot. She put the carrot pen close to his muzzle and when she saw his bafflement and weird look, she just nodded to which he slowly took it with his free paw while his other tried to escape her side but she wasn't letting him yet again but instead of watching him, she just snuggled close to him and hoped for the best.

Nick examined the pen thoroughly and when he noticed the small button and speaker his face morphed into seriousness and at last he pressed on the plastic trigger, a trigger that made the small device to play the last recording.

Through the small speaker, sounds of rustling cloth and slight buzzing was heard which managed to slightly confuse him until a certain extremely familiar to him voice began coming out the small pen. _"Prejudice, Fluff… careful,"_ came out Nick's muffled voice through the small pen which got him to scrunch his face in curiosity while Judy held herself in hopes that things wouldn't go downhill.

The recording played out a segment where Nick explained Judy who he scams until it came to the part where she asked him, _"Do you even pay your taxes, Nick?"_

Judy felt Nick readjust himself and she didn't like hearing the recording because it was something that she had done that wasn't like her, she had kept it for so long even when she had the opportunities to erase it, yet she didn't. That old choice made her brain to conjure ideas that Nick would be disappointed and would just walk away but it was the tiredness that was playing tricks on her and she knew it but, nevertheless.

 _"That depends to whom I'm talking. Is it to Officer Fluff or Carrots?"_ came out the voice filled with humor, a voice that she hadn't heard as such since her encounter with him at the dead-end alley.

A heavy sigh escaped the speaker. _"I'm off duty, Nick, if you haven't noticed. Even If I wanted to arrest you, I couldn't… right now."_

 _"Good, then what do you think? Do I pay my taxes?"_

 _"Do I pay my taxes?"_ was the low-pitched retort in the form of mimicking that got Nick beside her to snort in audible amusement _. "Jeez, I don't know, Nick, would I ask you if I knew?"_ Again rustling of cloth began moving out of the speaker for a short amount of time until silence fell yet again.

 _"Oh, hah…"_ A chuckle came about. _"Do you always do that, Fluff? Ok, I'll tell you. I… don't,"_ Nick from the recording confessed and the bang of something metallic was heard after which the shuffling of cloth came again but louder and the recording ended.

Judy grabbed Nick's shirt with both paws and pulled it close to her face from unnecessary fear that was being created by her tired mind. "Did you use this?" was Nick's very cold question that managed to chill her drooped ears.

"No…"

A few moments passed until she heard a simple, "Why?"

She sighed sadly. "I tried when Bogo wanted to fire me… but as I told you, he wanted me gone anyway. He didn't care what I had… he just wanted me out of there…"

"You could've brought the ZRS on me. You can still do that," he said and moved the pen close to her but she pushed his paw away with a smile.

"Why would I want to do that to someone I care for?" was her retort but when she looked at him, she saw his despondency which made her eyebrows to go down in realization.

"I am a piece of shit…" he mumbled and removed his paw from her and tried to stand up but she instantly felt his move and held him to sit still.

"What's done is done!" she began strongly and slowly moved his muzzle so that she could get him to look at her. "I trust you and I wanted to show you that I have nothing to hide because it would be unfair if I had."

"I trust you too Judy…" he said with strain as his mouth trembled and he got his eyes away from her view while he brushed his arm across his face and she took a guess why with a small smile.

"Let's get you home. This was an enough emotional day…" He trailed off as he saw her thousand-yard stare, a stare that was derived from the realization that she didn't have a home to go back to and it was going to be pretty late soon. She didn't have enough money nor energy to find a place to stay at for the night which now added up to the points of frustration and anxiety but she didn't want to include Nick in her problems thus she smiled awkwardly at him and nodded. He seemed very curious at her reaction but remained silent as they slowly got off the bench and began their journey to Judy's ex-flat.

* * *

They had taken the bus which drove them close to Judy's apartment and from there they walked the dark-yellowish streets until they neared the old building and entered. Judy's anxiety was beginning to spill out because she truthfully didn't know what she was to do and where she would go because she just didn't have enough money nor any mammals that she knew. The only mammal she knew was the red fox close to her who was content with keeping quiet during their short journey and she was glad as her puzzlement with the issue at paw would've shown itself if she was to speak.

When they began going up the stairs, there was visible moisture that was onto the wood and the humidity made for an uncomfortable suffocating feeling, making both mammal's lungs to struggle against the disrupter of their abilities in the form of coughing. She wanted to just rest because her body was exhausted mostly mentally but where was she to do that? In a box? If it came to that she wouldn't overthink it tho but there had to be some other way.

It was dark on the 2nd floor and she had to use her phone's flashlight as to not step onto the cold surface and in the process, she shined accidently at Nick's back and saw him scrutinizing the place and that meant that he would figure it out very soon.

"What happened here?" was his question that didn't receive an answer.

Judy quickly moved past him and tried to unlock the door which's keyhole was resisting her attempts until it finally gave in with a very short and sharp noise after which the wooden door opened and revealed the devastated from the water room. The wallpapers where her bed was had fallen onto it and the wooden planks on the floor had began deforming. The smell was modlily unpleasant and that made the doe to tip-toe around the visible small puddles of water and close the distance with the drawer that had her two suitcases suited for her size which were carrying all that she had taken with her from Bunnyburrow and it wasn't much at all.

She didn't have time to spare and needed to be quick about it. "Fluff," Nick said from in front of the apartment while leaning against the frame but she acted as if nothing was heard and grabbed the two suitcases but not before leaving the key on the drawer and rushed out through the door, closing it gently afterwards. "Hey don't act as if I'm no—" he tried again but she just kept moving towards the stairs because she just didn't want to talk about it as she needed to fix her problem herself.

But that was when a red blur moved past her and got in her way which got her to collide with him and look up but as she did, the blood that was still on his shirt and creamy fur which made her shoulders to slump in guilt but her thoughts were battered when he began, "What are you doing? You are being forced out aren't you?"

Her downcast look managed to show him volumes and he continued, "Do you have anywhere to go?"

She took her time before answering. "No… But I'll figure it out…" she answered with an unconfident smile which instantly died when she saw him slightly frown and sigh. He went through his pockets for a bit and grumbled something indecipherable after a bit.

"How much do you have on you?"

His question managed to get her ears to droop even further because what she had was just not enough for anything. "Probably 70…" she answered hesitantly because there really was that uncertainty to how much actually was owned.

"For a place that you wouldn't get robbed, stabbed or killed this isn't enough…" he talked aloud but it seemed it was to himself. "I just have some pocket change on me…" He put a paw under his chin and began rubbing it, seemingly thinking about the matter heavily while an idea took roots inside of her own head, an idea that sounded incredibly good for her but she didn't know if it would work.

"Uhm, let's go. We'll figure it out," he said and began moving down the stairs and that was when she brought up the courage in herself despite everything that had happened. She was tired mentally and physically, the weight of the crushing of her dream was still pulling her down and even if she had found out that Nick had lied about his betrayal, it wasn't stiffing her problems entirely as they were still raging inside her head. She couldn't picture how she would've been if he had managed to go through with his plan, how much she would've been further more hurt. Maybe she would've really left Zootopia as there wouldn't be anything holding her there anymore. Maybe.

"Can I come… at your place?" she whispered quietly but as the fox's ears flicked she knew that he had heard her. His place was a rugged old chair with the only heat source being a barrel in front and a warm body if there was one next to you. But it was better than everything else and she felt the need to be close to him because it just made her relax, it made her feel safety and comfort within. A cold bed in an unknown place wouldn't help her even one bit, it would only further poke her misery and fuel the creeping coldness.

"What? I can find you a decent place… just need some time t—"

She took a step forward and was now just in front of him, looking up at his still-bloodied muzzle and confused eyes that were trying to figure the situation out. She pulled his paw into hers and began disgruntling his fur for a bit until she chose her next words carefully, "Only for tonight… please? I just want to rest…" she explained with a yawn and a hopeful smile to which the tod at last relented with a sigh.

"You sure?" was his question to which she nodded and after some doubtful staring, he turned around and began walking towards the exit, joined by the doe by his side. Her mind was formulating a plan that she would very soon start because when one is robbed of something precious to them, a replacement is always needed. With a small smile and a thumping heart, she moved closer to Nick as they at last exited the apartment complex and with a plan in her mind that was managing to get the weight of today to back off and reduce its influence upon her existence.

* * *

There was this tingling that she could feel on the back of her black-tipped ears as something sharp moved through the grey-thinner fur and grazed the sensitive skin underneath. A shiver ran through her due to her liking to the sensation that made her fur to stand on an end. The pampers from the sharp ends began grazing the rims of her appendages and slowly they found their way in on the inside where her pink flesh was visible and when contact was made that got her out of her half-lucid state and she purred into the makeshift pillow she was sleeping on.

The mind-melting sensation faded away shortly after and she managed to regain her senses, thus finding where she was at. She could see that her warm pillow were two legs with some drool onto the brown cloth that enveloped them and as she moved her eyes upwards, she noticed Nick's bloodied shirt and still-stained creamy fur as he had only quickly removed some of the stains of the beating. But his paws were in front of his mouth as he was attempting to stifle his laughter which made her to tilt her head in interest as to why was he reacting in such a way.

She could remember that they had taken another bus for which Nick was reluctant to buy tickets as he had insisted that the hour was late and with her recent misfortune, she didn't even care to argue and they sat on the backseats of the almost empty bus. Distance was kept from each other mainly because she was feeling shyness that she was to sleep next to him again, even if there was that excitement that was stirring some interesting images. Yet why was she nervous? Hadn't she already done it several times and even just a minute ago as well? But it was different entirely, yet the same which slightly frustrated her in an annoying way.

But that was not the point, she could still feel the ticklish sensation inside the fold of her ear and that got her to scowl and push her paws into his stomach which got him to oof with some final titters of amusement. She actually loved what he had been doing but she wasn't going to allow him just yet, he needed to suffer a bit because of what he had made her go through but could she really manage to hold her ground In front of the cunning fox that in that moment ruffled the fur on the top of her head which managed to dissatisfy her nose. No. Not really.

A retort was going to come out but the doors opened and her paw was tugged towards the exit where darkness had its reign over the land, the only light being that of stars and the weakish-yellow from the bus that shortly after their lone exit, growled and sped off into the black abyss. It was pretty cold and when the wind brushed both of them she trembled from the iciness that was carried around in its breath. She was glad that the decision was made to put on her modest coat that was doing its best to keep her internal fire alive while it battled with the harsh surroundings that were trying to extinguish it.

Because her head was on the level of his shoulder with that thickening darkness as well, she just couldn't see his expression very well but she swore that there was a smirk present on him because he had gotten away with touching the inside of her incredibly-sensitive ear. But no matter, she could turn a blind eye on that, after all, it wasn't like it hadn't been enjoyable, it had been pretty blissful. After all the emotional luggage she had to carry, the little distractions were all appreciated greatly.

 _Luggage…_

Her suitcases… She had forgotten them in the bus. The realization got her to try and get out of his firm hold but in her panic she couldn't properly do so and when she was to shout at him to let her go, two solid object collided gently into her stomach but because of her disorientation from the darkness she would've fallen on the dusty ground if it weren't for his hold on her.

The shape of the objects was familiar and it didn't take long for her to realize the misdeed which got her to attempt to slap him on the shoulder but she missed because of the confusing blackness that was suffocating her constantly-moving eyes which were widely opened thus she grumbled while expertly getting out of his hold and grabbing his wrist instead. It was a move that earned her a lighthearted chuckle.

They walked through the thick shadows and Judy would constantly stumble on rocks or holes but it was impossible for her to fall because she was holding strongly onto her nocturnal guide, a guide who was strangely quiet but she shrugged it off because she wasn't as well in the mood to talk, not after she had been heartbroken in order for her to leave, fired and almost utterly humiliated if not for the fox by her side.

They neared a familiar for her bridge with a bubbling small river underneath and she knew that soon she would be in the realm of rest with a warm pillow by her side and as they crossed the stony construct, she let go and glided down the slope carefully and she almost stumbled upon a root that attempted to bring her down on her face but she managed to balance herself and get to the bank. Then she searched for the silhouette of the barrel and when she found it, she moved slowly towards it, searching for the old log as well. And when she got to the old log, her suitcases were carelessly put close to it while she waited with expectation for the red fox to come down shortly after. After all, he was kinda lazy. But nothing could be seen or heard in the shape of a mammal.

"Nick!" she shouted in an attempt to get his attention but all that was heard in response was the chirping of insects and distant songs of frogs. Her heart fell like her chilling ears as she didn't like being alone during nighttime in the middle of nowhere because her brain just loved to play tricks in such situations by creating images and scenarios that would seem silly in normal circumstances but blood-freezing, nevertheless.

"Ni—" Something grabbed her from behind which just rushed her heart. Was someone else down there? What was going on? She tried to squirm away and kick the mammal but she lacked energy and her attempts were very frail. Her brain immediately created the idea that it was Duke who had somehow found her and was now either going to kill her or use her before doing so which made her grunt and whimper in devoid fear. She knew it couldn't be true and even if it was, Nick was nearby, he was going to stop him… But then a familiar smell registered in her twitching nose which made her limp and got her to scowl in the tight hold while her breath lowered its pace as well as her stressed heart.

 _That doofus!_

Chuckles came from behind as she was put on solid ground after which she turned to face the mischievous fox with crossed arms and a further scowl but she was deeply glad that he was returning to normal because his humor was just absent since he had tried to make her leave by getting her to hate him. She was still filled with stress from the thoughts that had moved through her eyes while the knowledge that the weasel sought her death was making her extremely uneasy but she didn't want to show it, she hated showing her weaknesses furthermore, she needed to be strong and thus the mask she put on was a successful diversion of her actual for the moment feelings.

"Why did you just jump down here, Fluff?" he asked with a voice that carried genuine surprise and that confused her eyebrows a lot.

"Because… you live here and I'm tired?" she answered unconfidently which earned her laughter from his part and she just stood there in utter bewilderment while widening her eyes in an attempt to see better but the darkness wasn't budging.

"To think so low of me… That I would invite you to sleep under a bridge? Tck-tck…" he said with a quippy voice.

"And where else if not here?" she tried to understand and figure it out but didn't receive an answer, just the sound of claws scraping the rocks on the ground. She heard him grab her luggage and that got her to slowly tip-toe towards him and she would've almost collided with him if it were not for his paw that was extended forward as a barrier, a barrier that she grabbed and followed out of the river's bank.

Shortly after they neared some sort of a cabin in the form of a rectangle that was made visible by the crescent moon's light that was being reflected upon its outer sheet metal walls which had two windows on them and a chimney on top. She knew what this was, it was a part of the lone-standing hangar that she had spotted previously when she was last here. But why were they going towards it?

They got to the back of the cabin and the path that led there felt as if it was usually walked upon. Nick got out of her hold and she heard him fumble with some keys while she idled in front of the metal door. It didn't take him long to open it and get inside while she didn't know what to expect but her imagination was painting her pictures of untidiness and scattered trash all around because Nick was a male, that was to be expected of him!

But when a click was heard with blinding light following instantly, she put her paws in front as to block the intruding clarity until her lilacs adapted and she managed to look around normally. There was a sofa that seemed extremely comfy; a table with some chairs underneath; a stove with some wood on the other side of the wall; a drawer that seemed rather dusty on top and a door that probably led towards the hangar itself.

It wasn't perfectly clean as the dust was quite visible as well as some cobwebs near the corners of the ceiling but it was like nothing her brain had pieced together. She actually liked it because it was way more spacious than the box she had lived in and it seemed that the sofa was going to eat her whole if she was to lay on it which was soon going to happen, she hoped deeply.

"Get yourself comfortable. I'll get you some sheets… and before you ask, they won't smell like me," he explained and winked at her direction, which made her to nervously smile because she wouldn't have minded if they did but there was that feeling that it was still too soon, thus a single nod came about as she put her suitcases on the drawer that wasn't oversized and seemed perfectly fit for her or Nick which made her smile with the presence of exhaustion that manifested in a yawn.

She quickly found her checked pajamas and a fresh pair of black underwear and put them within reach. Then she began removing her coat with her police blues following suit and as she did that, the cold air brushed against her fur and made her to shiver in uncomfortableness. As she removed her clothes fully and was left bare in her black trunks, she rubbed her shoulders with some exhales that were clearly visible. She was just going to remove her trunks but her limbs froze and bashfulness overtook her as her eyes widened and nose twitched.

What if Nick walked in and saw her? A blush flushed through her and she squeezed her thighs against one another while shivering from the unwelcomed air that at least was managing to stifle the newly started fire that seemed to be making her loins itchy. She took a deep cold breath that dried her throat and swiftly removed her underwear which left her vulnerable to her surroundings but she was fast and very agilely put on the freshly-smelling ones with her checked pajamas after that in record time.

Dissatisfaction was brought about from the realization that she needed to clean herself before going to bed but tiredness was prioritizing sleep and she got to the sofa that seemed like a heavenly bed. But because she was still feeling cold, she went to the stove and examined it thoroughly. She knew how these things worked, having lived on a farm almost all her life which had made her able to take care of herself easily, things that many of the inhabitants of cities lacked in large quantities.

At her home, they had a big fireplace in the hall where most would be during celebrations or when eating. She would usually be the one that would help out with the carrying of the firewood and getting the orange flames dancing. Most of the rooms where her siblings lived had stoves and they were used until she became twelve. That was when her family decided to upgrade the house and install central heating that replaced the ash-spewing stoves.

With a small smile that came about from the warm memories, she grabbed the appropriate firewood and some papers that were conveniently laying nearby a matchbox, thus she ordered them neatly inside the cold stove with the papers laying underneath the thin and easily flammable wood. Then she flicked a match onto the striking surface and sparks were born for just a second after which some warmth began emanating above her small-beige claws.

Carefully, as to not lose its flame, she put the burning match under the papers and kept it there for some moments. They began deforming and developed a dark-burned color while orange and bright light swirled above, touching the cracking logs with its beams of warmth.

Judy knew that her job was done as the cracking inside increased and she closed the hatch but not without opening the small one in the middle so she wouldn't starve out the blissful fire. The stove was practically close to the sofa and she figured to take a seat until Nick returned with the fresh sheets. She even mused about just dozing off on the heavenly bed but when she sat, the coldness pierced her clothes and the fur on her rump while it tried to take her warmth as well.

That made her to immediately sit up and bounce on her feet as her lips quivered from shock and her paws roamed on the defiled spot of coldness. The room was getting warmer and that succeeded in chasing away the paralyzation from the freezing sofa. She took a bigger log and threw it inside the fire as there were now bright embers, embers that when she opened the hatch glowed in bright red from the extra breath of oxygen that entered and when she threw the piece of wood inside, sparks flew outside and collided with the restless-from-the-cold bunny.

She decided to keep the hatch open and carried one of the old chairs in front of the radiating warmth where she sat and put both her still-cold paws forward. The conditions were getting better and with the problem of lack of warmth out of the way, she now had time to think about what had happened. She would've lied if she said that she wasn't happily surprised from the fact that she wasn't going to sleep under a bridge but in an actual room that was becoming more and more comfy with each passing minute. But then again, where was Nick?

He was gone for quite some time. How hard was it to just get some sheets? But she didn't know the layout of his home that seemed rather odd and that perked up her curiosity to explore the building as interest to learn more about him rushed her mind in the search for answers. The room she was in didn't seem to have been inhabited for a rather lengthy period of time because of the undisturbed dust she was met with on the way in.

Her mind managed to conjure an image of him getting himself ready for bed which must've followed her same routine. That meant that if she was sneaky enough, she would be able to see parts of him that she never had. But her imagination explored too much of the possibilities which got her cheeks to further redden and her thighs to rub into one another by the big question of what was it like down there.

The inner door opened which pulled her out of the explicit-imaginative state and grabbed her panicked attention as a red fox in boxers with blueberries all around and a teal short-sleeved shirt entered with a few neatly folded sheets, a blanket and a few pillows in his paws while it was clear that he had cleaned the stained from his own blood fur. Seeing him in just underwear got her ears to fill with more blood to which she forced them down but her tail began wiggling which she couldn't stop from happening.

Because he was carrying them above underbelly, she could visibly see the small bulge of his resting foxhood which got her to huff and bite her lip but as embarrassment kicked in, she turned around in frustration and tried to seem as she hadn't noticed him but her tail was just betraying her attempts to act calm and oblivious.

"Missed me so much?" he quipped and she knew that he had noticed her teardrop-like backstabber. "Seems like you can take care of yourself. Unlike most mammals…" he mumbled the last part as he got to her side and she looked at him at last, while trying not to look where she shouldn't but glancing, nevertheless, which got her to huff sharply and smile at him in an attempt to hide her edginess with his belly-tickling appearance, edginess that she didn't want to talk about because of her shyness about the subject.

"Keep the fire going, Fluff," he said and sidestepped to the sofa, thus beginning to prepare it for her.

"Hey I can d—" she tried to argue but he stopped her.

"Tut-tut-tut," he slapped his tongue inside his mouth. "I know that you can but just relax now. Kay?" was his plead and she would've tried again if she hadn't seen his slowly swooshing tail which got her to gulp and remain silent. Nick got to work, and with a lever on the side, turned the sofa into a bed while Judy instead of watching the fire, watched him get her lair ready but more importantly she was examining his rump which would outline itself in the soft cloth when he would lean forward to tuck under the sheets.

Her heart began beating faster in guilty excitement and her paws felt itchy. But then his shirt swooshed forward and squirmed up from the extension of his arms that exposed the fur around his waist and belly. It wasn't something she hadn't seen before as she remembered the morning in the van but somehow her libido just spiked which got her to gasp and attract the attention of the tod's ears that flicked in her direction with interest. That managed to panic her and she turned around, the tension in her body increasing at the thought that he would catch her checking him out.

 _Grandfather was so right… Sexy dangerous foxes…_ She grabbed another log and threw it into the now-very-bright fire and closed the hatch. When she turned to face the bed, she was immediately met with a smirking fox that had readied her lair for use. She wanted to jump right in but was obstructed by him as he stood motionlessly with crossed arms. That got her to huddle her paws together to her chest and look at him expectedly.

A snort escaped his throat and he moved aside, motioning with his paw for her to enter which she did with huddled together eyebrows as she jumped in and got inside the cold folds which got her to exhale in mild agitation but the fabric underneath of the makeshift bed just melted her into the cushions. It was incredibly comfy and soft unlike the brick she lived on since the day she came to the giant metropolis. Her tensed muscles from the day relaxed and some of the tension that was ever-present faded away and dissipated.

The warmth from the stove kept increasing steadily and she saw Nick put more fuel inside but when he closed the hatch a sad sigh escaped his lips which managed to quirk her trapped ears underneath her. He then slowly walked to her while looking elsewhere, as if he was somewhat ashamed of something and as he got to her side, he got on his knees and put both his elbows on the sofa while playing with his clawy fingers nervously. She waited with anticipation what was to come next and wanted to be what she thought it would.

"Look… I don't want you to forgive me. I wouldn't forgive me… I'm not the brightest mammal…"-he leveled his emeralds at last with her lilacs-"I could have talked with you first but… I guess it's too late now… Ugh… The things is that I'm…"-his eyes moved away from her for a moment-"I'm sorry… I'm sorry for putting you through all this…"-a nervous smile appeared on him-"Just wanted to say that," Nick finished with his subtle smile and kept his gaze on Judy who was staring at him with the blanket under her chin as well as brightly glistering amethysts because of his shy attempt of an apology. She wasn't mad at him, she couldn't be when she found out why he had done it as well as that she would've been fired, nevertheless. It was impossible to hold a grudge, what was the point to further bring poison in her already tired blood.

As the poison was eradicated completely within her, that filled the emptiness with affection, affection that was as intense as before if not even stronger. What was done was done and what mattered was what was to come which was going to be dictated from her and his choices, choices that would lead to either happiness or pain. She knew why he had done it that way, he wanted her to hate him and quit everything. But what he couldn't know was that she didn't know when to quit and even if his attempt was very good, it wasn't enough and she didn't ever want to go through such emotions ever again.

That meant that she needed to tell him, to make him promise her yet again that he would never, ever, repeat the mistake he had done. She could see his nervousness as he scratched the peaceful hackles on his back and it was visible that he was to stand up and go to sleep very soon if she was to remain silent, therefor she sat on her rump, while pulling the blanket to her belly and that managed to attract his attention but somehow his ears fell when she did that which stirred the wheel of confusion in her head.

"Nick…" was her attempt to begin but something was amiss as the feeling of coldness, even if it was warm in the room, was present inside of her, thus she squirmed herself almost to the edge of the makeshift bed, just next to him and his damp nose. But he was silent, he clearly didn't know what was going to happen next.

Why not just plunge herself, why not take the risk, what was there left to lose? She just gazed deeply into his foresty-jades and smiled while her paws slowly reached for his muzzle that lightly opened as if he was to say something but closed itself in an exhale that tickled the fur on her cheeks. She caressed the top of his muzzle while her other paw cupped the underside where his creamy-soft fur was. He gulped which brought about a quiet happy scoff from her part and with continuous affectionate motions, she could see the tension from his shoulders starting to soften as well as from his eyes which was her que to begin confidently, kinda.

"Nick… You remember the promise you gave me?" An instant nod followed by which made her blood to warm up even more. "Please never make me go through this again…"-her eyes felt weak and moisture managed to come out on both corners-"It was so awful…" She removed the blurriness into her shoulder and tried to muster the courage to say the next incredibly important for her words.

"It was so awful because… because I… because I lo—" Something was wrong, she couldn't say them again, it was some kind of fear from being rejected that was choking her vocal cords, fear that made her veins to chill and mind to tell her to forget about it. But if she couldn't say it, she would show it and just as Nick was to say something, she pulled him towards her and embraced him in a loving hug. There was some resistance but it was frail and soon enough he surrendered with a sigh and returned the warm affection which made the emptiness to shrink, it made her feel better.

That was when she felt and saw the opportunity, her chance to express herself without words but through action, thus she began rubbing her head along his neck and cheek for a bit while letting her paws roam on his back. What surprised her was that he began following her motions and returned the mind-melting intimacy, intimacy she wanted to explore even more as she let herself to open her mouth and begin grazing his fur with her flat teeth. But she didn't end it there, no, with courage as well as sensual excitement that had intoxicated her, she pushed her head into him and began grazing his skin which got his throat to rumble and him to lick the exposed part of her shoulder.

"J-judy…" he mumbled as his breath became heavier and she was sure that he felt the same, he wouldn't have let her do this if he wasn't, his self-control was just too good. But she was just testing the waters, things were still unclear which made her too determined for her own good as she began kissing him gently, trailing each act of love towards the side of his mouth.

"Wa-it… mmmh… Ju—" he tried to speak again but the strain in his voice was just too great and she managed to detect whimpers as well as increased pressure of his solid claws that were on her back.

But she didn't stop even when he squirmed weakly and she got to the curved-beginning of his mouth and placed a soft and longer smooch on the bare-soft red lips that twitched as his muzzle slightly opened, exposing all his white teeth but that didn't shock her as she began moving towards the front of his maw.

"We have…. W-we have to… sto—…" he tried again but she wasn't listening as the heat in her loins was getting even itchier and that was making her even more craving as she used her soft tongue to lick the rim of his lip and put one of her paws on the small of his back while the other held the other side of his muzzle. Oh she was liking it, she was swimming in drunken pleasure and he wasn't pulling away, it was as if a dream had come true and when she felt his tongue snake out of the side and lick her lips while his own was curled up and his eyes were closed shut. It was happening, it was going to work, it was incredible. But just as she was to bite his slick tongue in playfulness, he quickly moved his head away from her and she instantly noticed his raised hackles.

His futile attempt of hiding himself from her was met with the vision of his hesitancy and frustration in him which was manifesting greatly upon his initials. That got her to try again and pull him into her embrace but he gently and with determination pushed himself out of her reach which managed to wound her heart which formed a desperate whimper as she supported herself on both her paws while staring at the reynard's back and tail that was tucked under his legs.

A heavy sigh was heard. "It's time to sleep, Fluff…" he muttered in despondence and began exiting the room, leaving a trail of irritation behind his wake. She thought that was some sort of silent rejection but from his behavior she could tell that it was more like restraint as he had strained himself visibly by just trying to get away, like he was uncertain of himself which gave her hope, it gave her more energy to pursue her goal, her want to bring happiness to him and herself.

Nick flicked the lights off and exited the room silently with a quiet thud of the door and now she was alone in the semi-darkness that was being disturbed by the stove's breath that shined through the metal cracks while the wood cracked inside and swooshed under the blazing flames of the fire. She wasn't really disappointed even if there were some stains of it inside of her. She had shown him what she felt and wanted, what was to come was going to be tomorrow and she had to sleep because there was her job and she didn't have the luxury to be late, again.

But with that thought came the realization about that she didn't have a job anymore nor authority, she was just a homeless bunny in the big city, a bunny who only had her police blues that represented her crushed to dust achievement, a demolished dream of endless efforts. She burrowed herself into the blankets in an attempt to bring forth comfort within her-just-recently disturbed core as she had distracted herself pretty good with the mammal with whom she began mending the almost-broken bond. But even if it had worked , it was never meant to last and even if the room was now hospitable and the makeshift-heavenly bed warm, coldness managed to somehow find its way into her and clench her stomach in a painful whirlwind.

She was now just Judy, an insignificant mammal in the vast world, a mammal with broken dreams and lack of purpose, a mammal that didn't know what to do next. The grim reality was crushing her spirit and that brought whimpers out of her throat while her closed eyes were filling with salty moisture which got her to squeeze the blankets to herself in an attempt to fight off the beast of misery, a beast that was trying to disassemble her will and eradicate it. She felt alone even when she knew that Nick was nearby, it just didn't feel the same like if he was to be close to her so she could feel his presence, his warmth, his care, his heart.

Her eyes widely opened because her mind jolted in newfound clarity which in truth managed to push away her discomfort and sorrow. Why was she grieving about something that was done, that was irreversible and finished. Why think about the past when she should be looking to the future, a future that she seemed to be the master of because she knew, she was sure that it could work, it just needed a big push from her side, a very determined and hard push because something was making him close himself and she needed to understand, she needed to get further inside.

The past was the past, she couldn't hate him, not after she realized why he had tried to make her do so. Her heart lowered its pace and the shaking disappeared. The new reality managed to sink in and take over the empty spot that was recently dug out. It was going to be alright, it was going to work. There was time and that brought calmness within.

And with that she snuggled the blanket even closer to herself and dozed off with a peaceful and subtle smile on her lips, lips which she licked as to savour his taste one more time while her heart bloomed with renewed vigor.

She had found another purpose.

* * *

\- Hardest chapter that I've written till now. Some may say that Judy forgave him too easily but could you blame her? After all that was disclosed to her and the contradictions that he made to his vile words with his actions? And the most important thing is that her heart is just too good which makes her unable to hold a grudge and remember bad things that have happened because she is who she is. At least for now. But what about Nick? Has he forgiven himself and how will he fight with his guilt? What'll happen next!? Idk, maybe we should end this here 3

\- **Music while writing:** _Dream a Dream_

\- **Latest edit:**

\- **Tumblr:** _markovas_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_


	22. Hate

**Hate**

* * *

 _It began with a distant squeak, a squeak that could've been from anything and that managed to stir a certain bunny from her sleep but as she found the exit from her dreams, the weight from yesterday began pulling her down to the heavenly bed that Nick had readied for her not so long ago. She pulled the blankets closer to and tried to hide herself in the comforting warmth that the cloth was trapping underneath. She felt blissful as she had missed the times when she would sleep like a corpse, something she couldn't do in the bustling city as the life outside managed to always find a way in through her windows while the walls around were too thin to keep the intruders in the forms of decibels away._

 _But here, here it was so quiet, so calm, so serene. Even at her home there wasn't such silence, especially in the morning when all would go around the house to their everyday tasks. The only sounds here were those of birds far away and the wind that brushed against the building but it was faint, it was soothing, it was pleasant. She was to doze off into rest yet again if it was not for that same squeaking sound that came from somewhere inside the building but it didn't stop there as something metallic fell and made quite some noise which at last got her to open her eyes in slight agitation._

 _The room hadn't changed since last night which would've been strange if it had and with that observation out of the way, she yawned and pushed the blankets off of her which made the warmth to escape into the room, replaced by the invaded-by-coldness morning air, air that got her to shiver for a moment and rub her body in reflex. It was nothing new to her and she was glad that at least her breath wasn't visible like last night as the stove had done its job until it choked and died with breaths full of ash at some point throughout the night._

 _She got off the bed and was met with the cool planks which got her to move her weight around until her body relaxed and she stretched herself with a very quiet groan that couldn't escape her lips. Her head was clear and body rejuvenated with energy and that excited her because there was no stress inside, no guilt, nothing but decisive thoughts about the future._

 _Judy went to the window that was near her, a window that overlooked the bridge and fields and she could see that it was probably late morning because the brightness was everywhere. The surroundings looked dazzling with the lone trees that were around the dirt road and old fences that were overgrown with vegetation and vines as if mammals had ceased to exist and nature had taken what was hers. She liked it, it felt more natural, it felt right and that surprised her because she wasn't missing Zootopia for some reason. But that reason was probably from what she had seen there and it wasn't anything pleasant._

 _Her observations were broken yet again from the screeching noise that made one of her ears to move at its direction and her head to do the same. It was coming from behind the wooden door that Nick had gone through last night, maybe he was awake and was doing something? She knew that she shouldn't just barge in but her curiosity just took control over her limbs and got her to quietly go to the obstructing barrier, a barrier behind which she had no clue as to what was there. Maybe a corridor, maybe another room?_

 _The desire to find out made her fingers itchy and with some reluctance from poking around his home, she opened the door and peeked her head inside but it was dark and she couldn't see anything thus the door was opened farther and light crept inside, making the darkness to shrink enough for her eyes to see the surroundings._

 _It was a corridor but this corridor was nothing like the room she was in, its infrastructure was from concrete and it looked very uninviting with its giant cobwebs on the ceiling which visibly had captured the lone light bulb in its dusty grey strings. The walls had old posters which were peeling off with cracks in the walls itself which had created crevices and exposed the iron from the inside with some rods even sticking out and showing their rustiness and eroding quality. The floor had trash all around with a small path that lead through the middle and it was quite clear that the place hadn't been touched in a long time._

 _I knew it… A small smirk appeared on her face. She was to close the door and head to her temporary lair when that same screeching originated from behind the corner of the corridor which just made her adventurous even if the passage looked extremely blood-coldening. With a determined huff, she began walking on the small path while looking at the walls and trash in interest as to find details, and details she found._

 _The posters, they looked familiar, they were like the ones she had at home, they were about the ZPD with motivating words to join the academy and become someone great, someone important. But what were they doing in there, had Nick thought of becoming an officer before and why were there written markings on the walls and posters like 'Lies', 'Deceit', 'Cowardice'. They were more importantly put onto the slogan of the ZPD poster which she remembered was 'Trust, Integrity, Bravery'. But then, then she saw sentences like 'Predators are freaks', 'Never trust a fox', 'The world is wicked', 'Revenge is the only way'._

 _It didn't make sense, why would he have this in his home, what was he keeping to himself still. She wanted to know and that fueled her resolve, which had weakened, to continue forth but when she rounded the corner, there was only darkness and that made her leg restless while she searched for a solution. At last, her eyes spotted a switch on the wall and she sidestepped from the path which was uncomfortable a lot as she had to do so in the rotting- organic trash._

 _When she flicked the switch which was entangled in webs, light flowed through the obscured bulbs but something exploded behind her which made her jump and grab her heart in undesirable surprise. When she heard glass fall on the floor, it was clear that a bulb had broken down thus she brushed it off with a nervous chuckle and continued towards the visible end of the corridor which had another old wooden door that was clearly battered and abused, judging from the holes and previously-ruined smooth wood. There were claw marks but they were very thin and didn't look as if they had been done by a predator, a fox._

 _She got to the door and halted, waiting for the squealing sound to repeat itself but there was nothing and that made her puzzled. Just as she was to open the door, something flew from the other side and broke into the door which got her to jump back and take a fighting stance as her lungs fired themselves up in disturbance. Maybe Nick was in trouble? She had to find out and that had to happen now._

 _Without anymore hesitation present, she opened the door with strain as it was stuck and when it flew open, she was met with a room filled with devastation and destruction. Most of the furniture inside was broken, all the walls were cracked, there were no windows, there was moisture everywhere and the air was very heavy. In the middle of all that was a mammal but that mammal didn't look like Nick, its shape was not that of a predator but the darkness was obscuring it from her widely-opened eyes._

 _Judy sought for a switch and as she found one and flicked it on, the room was bathed in light and at last she saw the mammal that was with its back towards her. It was a bunny but not any bunny, it looked like her… It had had police blues which were tarnished as there were cuts and slashes all around as well as stains that had dirtied the uniform, a condition she never remembered having it in. The bunny's ears were drooped and they had the same markings, the same black-tips she had and the fur on its head was very disgruntled as well as entangled in webs and dirtiness and its tail had the same shade. Who was that mammal?_

 _With unconfident steps, she began closing the distance with the unknown mammal while being careful and readying herself if things were to go south. But she halted when the mammal began talking to itself in a voice that shocked her from her very existence. "They hate us… Why do they hate us!? What did we do to them?" It was her voice, it was exactly the same but it carried a tone of malice, of sorrow, of frustration. What was going on? She needed to intervene._

 _"Hey are you okay?" Judy asked and the gray rabbit jumped in shock and swished around so fast that its floppy ears were still in view when it made the motion. And that was when Judy took a step back from dismay, dismay that triggered her nose and got her eyebrows raised up. The bunny was a doe, she had the same lilac eyes, same fur pattern, she had the same badge Judy previously owned, a badge that wasn't pristine anymore, it was rusted and the slogan of the ZPD was nowhere to be seen._

 _But what grabbed her attention was that the grey doe's eyes were unhealthily bloodshot with the fur under them being incredibly moist, her bared lips had made it visible that her buck teeth were cracked and her paws that were balled into fists seemed bruised and bloodied. The front of her police blues were even in worse condition that the back but her observations were broken when the grey doe began with incredible anger, "You! How could you do this to us!? After everything, you chose to betray us? And for WHAT?!"_

 _"Who are you?" Judy asked even if a big part of her didn't want to really know due to the fear of the truth as her mind was beginning to get to conclusions pretty fast._

 _"Ha!" the grey doe chuckled. "You forgot about us already? After all we did, after we kept ourselves together! You killed me and tried to forget about me? About us? You are DISGUSTING!" the grey doe shrilled through gritted teeth and grabbed a piece of a broken table's foot, hurling it at Judy's direction and almost hitting her if she had not dashed away from its path. She was at a loss of words because of the lack of understanding of the situation. All felt real even when she pinched herself which wasn't making any sense because there couldn't be someone just like her, exactly like her._

 _"You tried to forget what they did to us? What that fucking weasel did to us!? We should've killed him there but you chose to be riiighteous and hooonorable. Pha! Because of your mistake now we are in danger you stupid weakling!" The words, they were familiar, the thoughts even so. Her heart began increasing its pace and there was that same feeling of suffocation she had experienced during her emotional train ride. How did the grey doe know about all that, why was she bringing the locked inside, the locked that was needed to remain as such, it needed to remain forgotten and banished. It was being brought forth, it was being exposed again to her mind and that was troubling her greatly._

 _"You should've listened to me when I told you how we could've saved our friend but you chose to trust those fucking imbeciles! And she DIED because of you!" Those memories got her to whimper and she almost fell from shock as if a blast wave just hit her. The words raised her anger and tried to poison her blood but the guilt was heavier and just got her intoxicated with shame from the past._

 _"I was just a kit back then! I couldn't do anything else…" Judy tried to protect herself from the former mistake while looking at the dirty ground._

 _"You could've if you listened to US!"_

 _"That wasn't right!" Judy shouted and met the grey doe's bitter gaze._

 _"So letting her die was more important to you than your pride and broken morals?" This was a topic she didn't want to talk about, this was a topic she never talked about and this mammal knew things that only she knew, how was that even possible?_

 _"Shut up! Shut up…" Judy yelled and slumped to her knees as tears tried to break through from the memories that were forced to resurface by the grey doe. The mistake that was made that day would be with her all her life, a mistake that lead to a life-changing decision._

 _"You chose to abandon us back then and after that you let that pelt in as well? Don't you remember what they did to US!" the grey doe yelled, took an aggressive step forward and pulled the fur on her left cheek which showed scars from the past, scars that got Judy to subconsciously touch and then to hug herself. "You choose to push me away and look where that got us. We got hurt again because you are a naïve idiot!"_

 _Silence befell the room and the air became even heavier while the walls seemed to be moving inwards, creating a claustrophobic feeling which was starting to play tricks with Judy's mind. "And you chose to forgive him? After all he did, after all he can do! Just because you like him?"_

 _Incredibly amount of doubt was how she described her state of mind. Maybe she shouldn't have trusted him but she did and now there was no going back. She had made her choice. "I did!" Judy answered strongly and stood up._

 _"You can't because he will do the same again. You will hurt us again! Listen to me for once and leave this pelt, this scheming FOX! All of them are the same, all of them want to take from us until we are left dry!" the grey doe bellowed and threw a broken plate at the nearby wall with incredible amount of rage._

 _"He isn't a bad mammal… Stop saying those things!" Judy tried to argue in desperate attempt to battle the thoughts of prejudice that were being spat from the grey doe's mouth. She despised prejudice, it was what made mammals short-sighted, it was what conjured hate._

 _The grey doe clenched her fists and spat on the floor and began while pacing around the ruined room, "No? So he can hurt us and walk away? He can lie to us and walk away? He can manipulate us and walk away? Are you a moron?!"_

 _The grey doe was right yet she was wrong. What had happened had happened and she knew that he felt grief, if he wasn't feeling it he wouldn't have pulled away from her affection and the showing of her feelings, he wouldn't have tried to push her away after he had told her everything. He was suffering and only he knew the amount of how much that was. It was impossible for her to know the weight of his guilt. "He made a mistake! Like I did… No one is perfect, not even you!"_

 _"He will betray us again, HE WILL!... Let me take care of things," the grey doe ordered and stopped, matching her ruby-like-bloodshot lilacs with Judy's normal ones as if she was waiting for a conformation._

 _"He won't… I know he won't."_

 _"How?" the grey doe asked with a tilted head._

 _"He made a promise," Judy asserted and scrunched her face in seriousness. She was certain that he wouldn't break it, her gut feeling was telling her that he won't and that was all she needed._

 _The grey doe began chuckling and then straight-out laughing with paws on her belly that clenched it. "You… aha… ha… He made a promise? The lying fox made a promise! You are pathetic! You make us pathetic by defending that piece of shit!"_

 _"Stop saying those things for him. He isn't like that!" Judy tried with paws huddled to her chest because she was feeling very vulnerable to the grey doe's words. They were so personal, they were words and thoughts that had actually moved through her head and that was scaring her, it was making her question herself._

 _"He hurt us you empty-headed fool…" the grey doe tiffed with strain while her body trembled in rage._

 _"I know… But I believe in him, I believe that he could be much more than what you say. He can!" were Judy's confident words that didn't have a gram of hesitancy because she really believed in him, it was something that couldn't be wobbled, it was unconditional truth._

 _"You are insane!" was the shrill of the grey doe who now seemed desperate and visibly baffled._

 _Judy pressed both paws on her heart and after a few moments, she knew what needed to be done. "No… I'm not. You aren't who you are trying to be as well," Judy retorted and began walking towards the grey doe whose eyes widened and legs trembled, visibly from shock and undecisiveness of what to do next._

 _"Stay away… Away I say…" the grey doe tried to act threateningly but Judy was unrelenting and was closing in on her and the rage that was present in her bright-red bloodshot eyes changed into primal fear._

 _Judy saw that fear and asked, "What are you afraid of?" to which the grey doe growled and charged at Judy but in the doe's emotional-driven attempt, Judy managed to dodge her move, pull her arm and put pressure on the back of her knee, thus getting her on the dirty floor but the grey doe succeeded in twisting herself and she pulled Judy down as well which got them to grab each other and wrestle on the filthy ground that was covered in many small pieces of trash._

 _"Jus…. leave me alone…" the grey doe yelled as Judy straddled her stomach and grabbed her bloodied paws._

 _"You don't have to be alone, I–" she felt a push from behind as the grey doe pushed her hips up and that was when Judy lost her balance and fell on the side._

 _"He—" Judy tried to say but the grey doe bolted through another door and Judy didn't have time to spare, she wanted to confront her inner self, she needed to. With immesurable amounts of determination, she sat up and ran after the grey bunny. Behind the door there was another corridor but this one was in even worse condition as the holes in the walls were so deep that the outside could be actually seen but she didn't have time for that, she had to catch up to her counterpart, she wanted to catch up._

 _The darkness in the corridor was thickening and the only light now was the one that was squeezing through the holes in the walls and she could visibly see vines that had managed to squeeze inside. A door opened in front which for a moment made the surroundings visible but it closed with a loud bang which pierced her ears and made them ring but she was too determined to stop and try to recollect herself._

 _As she got to the door, almost hitting it with her body due to her very fast sprint, she tried to pull but it wasn't giving in which began infuriating her hopelessness that she was going to fail and lose the grey bunny. With all her strength, she pulled the handle, and at last, witch a lot of screeching, the heavy and thick steel door opened at last, blinding her eyes as the light from outside pushed itself in the claustrophobic corridor._

 _She exited the building and after getting her eyes adjusted, she scanned her surroundings which consisted of old walls and fences as well as fields with very tall grass and a forest that was visible in the distance. But the sky was black and the wind was sharp as it pushed against her and managed to go through her pajamas and fur, striking her skin and taking away her warmth which made her to shiver in discomfort._

 _Her fast lilacs managed to spot movement in the fields and that made her legs to consciously start moving with absurd speeds, speeds which were making her breathless and her muscles burning but she needed to succeed. If not, things could get complicated._

 _The thistles and thorns inside the unkempt field were sticking into her fur and were pulling it painfully, they were getting into her clothes, clothes that were beginning to tear with the strings severing from each other and leaving parts of her body exposed to the cold breath of nature. It was extremely unpleasant and she could feel the razor-pointed rocks to cut her feet while she protected her eyes from the hostile vegetation._

 _But that wasn't the end of her troubles as frosty raindrops began falling onto the earth and her as well, thus with whimpers and grunts, she pressed forward even if the rain was starting to get more and more aggressive with each passing minute. Why was she even chasing after the grey doe, what did she really want to achieve with that. She knew who the doe was and was it even possible to make her see? And how could that even work._

 _She exited the field at last and before her was a normal grass meadow with the big forest behind it. She spotted the grey bunny not far away and with renewed vigor, sprinted towards her even if she felt her muscles to be begging for rest as well as her lungs that were simply just burning from the need of energy. The rain bashed against her back, drenching her in iciness while her feet stung in pain as well as the rest of her quirked body that had been attacked viciously by all the wild growth, growth that she couldn't go around if she was to not fall behind._

 _Her energy was draining and her pace was lowering, her skin was itching and her fur was heavy. Her body was losing its flow and even with her forge inside working at maximum capacity, her eyesight was getting fuzzy and her brain dizzy yet she wasn't stopping even if the feeling of loss of consciousness was growing ever-stronger, she needed to advance, needed to…_

 _Something made her stumble and she fell flat on her chin, grinding it into the muddied soil with particles managing to enter her mouth and wiggling nose which just made her to cough as the feeling of suffocation and choking got her brain to explode in warning signals. She needed air… now! She needed air… With a few more coughs and spits, she managed to get the disgruntled mud out of her nose and mouth but not the taste and scent of petrichor which was kinda sweet yet was very heavy with moisture and that wasn't pleasant even one bit._

 _Collecting her breath, she stood up with wobbly legs and continued her chase but without the previously-young energy she carried simply because she was losing hope that she would now even catch up. She entered the forest which was thick and old as the trees stood tall while battling with the weak light above, creating a very blinding shadowy presence. At least she wasn't feeling the piercing rain anymore because of the tree's protection but she would've preferred that to the disorienting shadows, shadows she hated since she was a kid simply because of the instinctive fear as well as the rational one._

 _There was no sight of the grey doe, there were no tracks, there was nothing and that was making her drive to plummet into surrender and she began losing the hope that had previously burned in her heart and mind. What was she hoping to achieve, why was she going through more misery when she could've stayed in her bed and just rested. She could've waited for Nick to come and show her around, she could've evaded this if she had just been less curious._

 _Her thoughts stopped when she saw a clearing further ahead but instead of trees there were only stumps of them, and after some running, she exited the forest and before her she could see a big lake that flowed with a fast current and just before that lake was the grey doe on its bank, moving around frantically, visibly being in distress while holding something in her paws._

 _"Hey!" shouted Judy as she closed the gap and stopped at a respective distance from the grey doe who turned around in surprise and Judy could see her moist eyes as well as the object in her paws, the object being the rusty badge which was a reminder of her crushed dream._

 _"T-they cast us o-out like a leper. L-like we weren't a m-mammal… L-like we were some t-trash!" the grey doe cried through a cracking voice. "How could y-you let it go, how could you cast m-me aside. You abandoned m-me! Why do you h-hate me?!" the grey doe broke down and threw the badge into the raging river in desperation. Judy's heart squeezed painfully and at that very moment she knew what was needed to be done, what she had to do in the devastated room._

 _Judy began slowly moving towards the grey doe who took some steps back when she saw her move. "What are y-you doing, w-wait…" Judy saw her opportunity and when the grey doe tried to escape past her, she used all her agility and grabbed her counterpart in a very tight and loving hug, a hug that was being resisted against with a lot of fortitude, fortitude that weakened and after a bit, it just died._

 _"I did… I know… I'm sorry for casting you aside but this is not the way," Judy explained as she hugged the grey doe with even more affection, rubbing her head into the doe's trembling one and caressing her back which was feelably battered._

 _"T-t-then what i-is…" the grey doe asked through choked breaths._

 _"Forgiveness… and love," Judy answered in the most soothing way possible, her heart radiating like a thousand suns as she gently pulled away and mooned in the bloodshot lilacs of the crestfallen grey doe whose lips were trembling and eyes were watering. But she didn't wait for the retort, she needed to show her because actions mattered more than words and that was what she did. With both paws now on the sides of the grey doe's head, Judy began pulling the doe towards her and readied herself for what was to come._

 _"W-wh—" the grey doe's words died in her throat as Judy pulled her in for a deep and longing kiss which began starving both of them out of their breaths. Judy could still taste the petrichor but her counterpart's soft lips were blissful and it didn't really dampen her resolve to continue, she even liked it the feeling which stirred excitement in her smouldering core._

 _It lasted for a bit and when Judy pulled away, a wet slap was heard and both panted under the stagnation of air while they looked at each other, one in surprise, the other in affection. Judy closed the distance again which widened the grey doe's eyes but Judy didn't repeat the kiss, just rested her forehead against her counterpart's and stood like that for a bit while caressing the insides of the grey doe's ears._

 _"I love you… You are a part of me and I will not try to act as if you are not. You are… me…" Judy explained with a smile and cupped the cheek of her counterpart who was trembling everywhere and audibly sobbing._

 _"Y-y-you won't be able to with f-f-forgiveness… you are only going to get us hurt again…"_

 _"That is why I need you… I need you to look after me but not with hate and prejudice. I need you to warn me if I get carried away… Okay?" Judy pleaded and moved her paw through the grey doe's cheek and the doe at last pushed herself against Judy's pampering paw in surrender with a small smile that managed to creep onto the doe's face for the first time since their meeting._

 _"Okay…" the grey doe relented and tried to back away but Judy, liking the sensation she had experienced, pushed herself again into her counterpart and kissed her feverously yet again but this time the grey doe didn't stay still and returned the affection which made Judy to giggle in between the wet smooches, ending them with a hug which her counterpart returned as well while giggling too._

 _Both bunnies held each other for some time and even when the rain kept barbarically attacking them while trying to extinguish the fire of affection and love, their hearts bloomed strong with revived vigor._

 _Judy gently pulled away but still keeping contact with both her paws around the grey doe's neck while looking at her in satisfaction. "There is no need for hate. Everyone can come back no matter how too far gone they ar—" A cracking sound like thunder originated from behind Judy and she felt something enter her body and twist its path with burning agony, which made her to cry out and fall into her counterpart's embrace. The river in front was raging as if it was alive and she could see visible streams of red, streams that looked like blood…_

 _"W-w-what… H-h-hey!" the grey doe shouted but Judy was losing consciousness by the second as she felt her warmth to flow out of her back and down her spine, she couldn't feel her heart anymore as if it had stopped beating while her blood just ceased flowing in her veins. She felt her limbs to become weak and unresponsive as well as her sight heavy and blurry and she fell out of the distressed doe's embrace and onto the cold and muddy ground which began swallowing her body with a muddy hug._

 _The grey doe shrilled in shock and Judy tried to reassure her that everything was going to be okay but when she moved her head, she saw through the blurriness a mammal who looked familiar, a mammal who was holding a pawgun and was shooting at the visibly filled with bloodlust grey doe. But who was that mammal and why had he done that to them, why was he shooting at them, why did he hate them…_

 _She couldn't widen her eyes as they were closing shut on their own but realization creeped into her dying mind, realization that would've made her blood to boil if it were not for her dead heart._

 _Duke._

With a sharp gasp, Judy pulled herself out of slumber and almost jumped out of the bed from the panic that was everywhere in her system. Her heart was insanely pumping scorching blood everywhere inside her, her limbs were incredibly quirky while her eyes tried to find the threat of death but were failing to do so because she could blurrily see that she was in the cabin that she had previously dozed off in the night before while the light from outside peeked through the windows and exposed the small dust particles that had been disturbed by her sudden move.

It took her a bit to calm down and when she did, she slumped into the pillows and put a paw on her forehead while a stressed-filled exhale escaped her dry lips.

 _Just a dream… Felt so real… Felt too real…_

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

\- Chapter inspired by Lucinda, an active follower of this story, who got me to think more deeply on why things were as they were. What is this chapter? For every single one of ya it would mean different things but the main idea should be obvious, winkey face.

\- Strange thought that I now turned into a question. Would you fuck yourself if another you appeared before you, the same exactly from the thoughts to the looks. I definitely would, simply because I am emotionally attached to myself. It is the same as if it were another person, it is if one thinks about it of course. Odd thing, huh. Just flashed through my thinking. Wait, forget the fucking, I'm keeping myself as a bloody partner simply because there just can't be another person that understands you better than you yourself. That would be the best thing in the world, yet impossible, heh. Hey! Just musings on paper, I mean… whatever. Stop reading this insanity. We ought to make due with what we got due.

\- **Music while writing:** _Parov Stelar - All Night_

\- **Latest edit:**

\- **Tumblr:** _markovas_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_


	23. Pleasure Over Reason

**Pleasure Over Reason**

* * *

The insulation on the ceiling had an interesting dark oaken texture, each plank being unique and different from the other in some sort of way. A small brown spider moved across the wooden rectangles and stopped just in the middle of Judy's vision as if it had noticed her. It tapped its furry legs onto the surface and pulled a piece of silken thread out of its oval sack which it shortly after attached onto the wood and let itself go which made it start falling towards Judy whose eyebrows went up because of the spider's odd behavior.

While moving down, it was becoming bigger and bigger and she could see its small black fangs that were twitching up and down its mouth while its many eyes stared at her without any emotion. Just when she thought that it would reach her, it swished its body, pushing the thread and creating a swinging momentum after which it just instantly disappeared from view and that made her eyes to dart around the room in search for the strange little creature.

But they didn't find anything, only the already-explored surroundings of the cabin she was in which made her to exhale and relax yet again into the warm pillow. Her body was rid of the stress from yesterday with some stains that were present inside of her but they weren't that great, they weren't that strong.

The cacophony within her mind was muffled and thoughts now flowed easily without the presence of distractions and functional disabilities that were created from the day's horrific experiences, experiences she now could muse upon with clarity. And that was what she was doing.

She had lost her dream job, she was kicked out of her apartment, she was almost pushed away from Nick if it weren't for her attempts to get to him and she was now in his home with a new goal in mind which was making her uneasy. There was no explanation for her how she managed to get him to let her come here but she couldn't have known. All she knew was that he lived near a bridge, or probably under it… She didn't know that he was living in a hangar, with furniture that one could call bed. A very comfortable bed as a matter of fact with a source of heat nearby.

They had agreed that the search for another home would commence today and that was bringing her down because she actually liked the place because it was so peaceful, so humble and cozy. There weren't loud neighbours, no bustling streets or insane mammals outside during the night that would yell for no apparent reasons. There weren't rumbling pipes that would wake you up during the night nor any obnoxious landladies that could kick you out in the worst possible moment of your life without even lending you a paw.

Well she didn't know that, Nick could kick her out at any time if he wanted to and she couldn't just nestle herself in and say that she doesn't want to go even if that was what she actually wanted because the place just felt like her home, secluded from civilization and submerged in wilderness. It felt right and she couldn't believe it because all the amazement that was felt during her entrance in the shinning metropolis she had experienced was now gone, turned to shit, ruined.

The illusion of excitement lasted for a bit during her stay but when she was met with the rotten side of the city, it just didn't feel right anymore and if she was to be honest with herself, she really missed her home, her family, her friends. But she couldn't go back there, at least not yet because they would find out what had happened and would nag at her that they were right. She didn't need more weight on her shoulders and she didn't want to talk about it really. This atrocious experience needed to be molded into a very hazy and distant memory which meant that the less she thought about it, the quicker it would actually happen.

One thing was certain tho, she needed to get up and ready herself for the day because it was going to be a long one, and with an instant motion, she removed the warm-underneath blanket and pushed herself with her paws to a sitting position, releasing her suffocated tail at long last and letting it wiggle its way into freedom. The semi-cold air pushed its path towards her and tried to invade her space but her clothes were protecting her fairly decently.

With both paws above her head, she stretched herself with a quiet groan that died inside her throat after which she slumped her back forward and slapped her dry lips together as a yawn managed to water her eyes that were feeling pretty dry and in need of a morning splash of rejuvenation that would bring her out from sleepiness.

Starting to collect her energy in order to get out of the heavenly bed, she straightened her back and popped a few joints which released the stiffness from her body. She wasn't feeling rugged like she would after waking up on her brick before going to work. No. Now her body felt rested and ready for the day and because of that fact, she inhaled deeply and jumped out of her lair, landing on the cool planks which weren't bringing discomfort upon her warm feet.

With bounciness in her step, she closed the distance with the drawer where her two suitcases were and grabbed the one she needed. From it she brought out her toothpaste, furbrush and toothbrush. What she needed to do now was to find the restroom as this was something that was just necessary, a repetitive morning task but required, nevertheless.

The issue was that she didn't have a clue where that was and as Nick hadn't still visited her, she knew that she had to find it on her own and the only known direction was the door that she last saw him go through last night. The dream that she pulled herself out of a few minutes ago was still strong and the details were just now starting to dissolve into dust but she could remember the nasty corridor that was behind that door in her lucidness and that was kinda breaking her curiosity but she had to find what she was searching for because the tufts of fur on her head were annoyingly bugging her.

With a stress-relieving exhale she slowly crept towards the imagination-fueling door and stared at its knob which was the only obstruction for her from finding out what was behind it. Was it an awful corridor filled with cockroaches and odorful smells or was it just his room where he had unlaundered clothes scattered all around as well as things that her innocent eyes still hadn't seen?

 _Stop being so dramatic…_

With e nervous smile, she grabbed the knob and twisted it counterclockwise and the door opened with a click while its hinges creaked under the lack of presence of oil between their hungry gaps. Slowly, she peeked her head inside but couldn't see much as darkness was present which got her to search for a light-switch which was just on her side. With a quick motion light exposed the room which wasn't big but rather small with a doors on both sides. There wasn't anything awful, just an almost empty room that surprisingly had some buttons near the door on the right with a metal chair close to them.

She got inside the small room and contemplated which one she should choose but because a yawn forced her mouth to open again, she tapped her foot on the planked surface and opened the left door which exposed another cubicle which was bigger and actually looked like a corridor but with windows that were on its one side. Judy flicked another switch and as the darkness was chased away, she saw the end of the room which had yet another exit or entrance. The room had some wooden desks and chairs with filing cabinets on the other side of the wall as well as peeled off posters which were illustrating very old planes with slogans like 'We are the future, we are the next step', 'Work hard, watch over the other, succeed', 'Cars will become a memory of the past' and others which weren't readable anymore as time had not been kind to them.

Judy wanted to explore the room and the files in it but her mind was nagging at her to finish her morning task and that nagging made her to huff in irritation therefor with a small jog, she got to the end of the room but not before peeking from one of the windows and noticing that behind them was the inside of the hangar where visibly there was something big which was obscured by shadows and a light-grey cover.

This door was from metal and had a handle but it wasn't locked which meant that maybe she was on the right path. But when she opened it, she instantly felt the cold air from behind it to envelop her surroundings and she could now see her breath which got her to hug herself and press on. She knew that this was the inside of the hangar she remembered seeing from the outside but it was dark and she just couldn't find a switch as to chase away the reigning unwelcoming sightlessness.

There was the choice to go blindly forward but it didn't make sense for Nick to be there or even a restroom because it was an inside of a hangar, it was not a place where a mammal could rest for the night and even if she was greatly interested in finding what was under that cover, the cold air and uninvitingness managed to extinguish her blind curiosity and she headed back to the small room where the last known door was located.

She was now standing just before it and it was just a humble wooden door which she opened after some uncomfortable hesitation but what she saw before her managed to greatly confuse her as well as her nose. It was a closet with rafts above and crates on the side. One could say it was just a normal and usual place that most buildings had. But not this one, this one wasn't normal and what made it different was the solid steel hatch that was fully opened on the floor, a steel hatch that greatly baffled the grey doe who just stood there and gawked at the unorthodox construct which was something she wouldn't have ever been able to imagine for such a thing to be there.

Taking a step forward, she poked the rim of the hatch with her foot and felt its coldness that seemed to be quite unwelcoming to her. She kneeled before it and looked over into the hole where she noticed a ladder and red lights that were on the opposite side which led downwards pretty deep. There was no idea inside her head that could explain this and her mind was telling her to just wait for Nick to come to her so she wouldn't get herself lost in his odd home but curiosity prevailed against reason and with itchy paws that were holding her toiletries, she put them in her top's breast pocket and decided to climb down into the unknown.

While she was slowly climbing down, her path being illuminated by the red light, she could see visible red furs stuck on parts of the ladder which meant one thing, this was a path that Nick took regularly, at least she guessed that it was as such because still she didn't know what was down there. Moving her head up, she could see that the surface had grown smaller and the hole that she got through was almost not visible. How deep was this and what was it at all? Was she not supposed to go down there? Could she get in trouble if she did?

Her foot surprisingly touched solid ground that was in the form of concrete which made her to eeep quietly and fall on her rump from shock. Quickly standing up, she turned away from the ladder and faced what seemed to be a corridor with a very thick steel door that was half-opened at its end. But it wasn't a normal steel door, it looked reinforced, it looked heavy and very impregnable with another one that was just next to her side, a few meters from the ladder, which was fully opened. There were red lights on the side solid-concrete walls which were weakly dimming with a vent entrance just before the end of the corridor.

For Judy, it looked like a bunker of some sorts. But what was a bunker doing under a commercial airfield which from her scrutinization wasn't used for military purposes at all. With hesitant steps and huddled together paws, she began walking towards the end of the corridor in want to see what was there while the cold concrete underneath her feet was making her feel quirky and uncomfortable.

But when she neared the thick blast door, she saw old planks of dark walnut wood as well as yellowish light coming from the sides of the obstructing mass of steel. She felt warm air to brush the fur on her neck and wrists which meant that behind that door could be where Nick was, or not. Not wanting to be spotted during her sneaking around, she carefully took an eyeful behind the thick steel giant and what she saw made her mouth to hung agape from bewilderment. It was a big room that was spacious with all kinds of furniture and equipment. The vent seemed to be going across the room and into another wall to somewhere else while a small kitchen was present in one of the corners of the big enclosed space.

There was a table just in the middle behind which she could see a big-enough bed with a sofa just next to its end. There were cables hanging close to the ceiling from the vent and towards the wall where the small kitchen was, cables that were black and very thick but what caught her attention was the shirt that was extended on one of those cables with a pinch that was holding it in place as if the shirt was being dried. But because of the enveloping amazement, she didn't find it funny because she was dazed from wonder which made her to enter with widely-opened unblinking eyes as she tried to see everything and that was when she noticed what seemed to be a work desk with Nick's clothes hanging on the chair which just made her excited but she needed to announce herself at last because that was the right thing to do.

"Nick…" she said soundly but nothing was received in return which got her to go over the environment in another attempt to spot the red tod but when she was met with failure, she sighed and decided to look around even if she was intruding in his privacy, her interest in finding more about him was just controlling her actions at that very moment.

All the furniture seemed to be for Nick's size which wasn't making any problems for her, simply because she was just a head smaller than him, thus she moved the chair close to the desk and sat on it. She noticed folders right away with papers scattered all around but what grabbed her attention was a framed photo which she gently took and examined. There seemed to be three individuals, one of them being a red vixen with the same fur patterns like Nick but her visible tail had a white tip rather than an auburn one and her eyes hazely-glowed.

The vixen had two grey teardrop-like earrings; a silver necklace with a small green gem that had furrowed itself in her creamy fur and on her left paw, she could visibly spot a silver ring on the vixen's finger but she couldn't see any details as the photo wasn't that new. The vixen was holding onto a small fox kit's paw who Judy immediately grasped was Nick. But this Nick had the same indigo necktie she remembered seeing him almost every time with and a very wide and genuine smile that looked so adorable, so cute that she almost cooed from melting affection.

The last mammal on the piece of memories, who was holding onto Nick's other paw, had its face cut out from it, which just made her eyebrows to play around from dissonance. The mammal had an old watch on his left paw, a watch that made her eyebrows huddled together as it seemed familiar, like she had seen it with her grandfather when younger. Maybe it was like it, she couldn't remember. But then she saw something on the paw that was holding Nick's paw. It was that same silver ring, which meant one thing, this must be his father.

He was in a very good-looking suit but was missing its necktie, for a reason she soon found out, and had his tail around the young kit, a tail that had the same auburn tip. Both adult mammals' tails were around the child who looked so happy, so glowing and enthusiastic. This definitely were his parents as Judy could see the love in the vixen's eyes and stature, knowing from experience how it felt and appeared. It made her heart to flutter for a moment and a small smile to appear on her but it managed to fade away.

Why was his father's face gone, had he died? But if he had, why would Nick try to banish the memory of him by trying to forget how he looked. It didn't make sense but she decided to put that aside for another time thus gently returned the framed photo back and began going over the papers scattered all around the untidy desk. Grabbing a random one, she began reading it and could see accounting for money earned and spent on what was labeled as 'Hustle Bustle' which made her to snort in amusement and when she began going over the paper's numbers, it was visible that his earnings for that day were more than 300 Mammalian dollars or MD. Other pages showed less or a bit more but around those figures.

 _I knew it!_ All the evidence about his illicit activities was in her paws and she could use it against him, she could get him for everything he had done. But those thoughts were now just a distant echo of controlled hatred and she wasn't going to do that to him, not after their heart to heart conversation and his promise, not after she was humiliated by her colleagues for doing her job. This was nothing to her now, just a mammal trying to get by and providing for himself while not hurting anybody with his actions, not even slightly.

Because the folders were laying close to her paw was the reason why her curiosity spiked, so she quickly pulled one in front of her and opened it but when she did her face scrunched in confusion as the words on top just grabbed all of her attention and attempts of understanding, words that said 'for Judy's rent' under which were names of what must've been places that could be rented with a white envelope underneath which was still not sealed, an envelope that made her paws to feel uncomfortably out of place and her to explore its contents right away with a choked breath that was harbored from the excitement.

Rotating it, she pushed it down and from it fell quite some bills of money which got her body to freeze and nose to wiggle. Cautiously, she looked at them and decided to count them at last, and in the process of doing so, her eyes were widening at the sum that was being reached while all dominations consisted of a 100s and when she reached the end, she had counted 3000 MD.

 _Is he crazy? That's enough for half a year…_ With a heavy gulp, she put the money inside the envelope and closed the folder because he had visibly thought about things during her rest, an act of caring which just made the bubble of vulnerability to begin shrinking while it was being replaced with warmth. There was a laptop there under the papers also but she was met with a wall of hesitation. Wasn't she going too far with her intrusion, was this unjustified and wrong. But he wasn't here, he wouldn't know, it would be her guilty little secret and thus she opened the laptop but was instantly met with the crushing reality in the form of a password which got her to huff and close it shortly after.

Her eyes tried to find anything else of interest on the desk but from all the rest of the papers, pens and what looked like documents, she almost lost interest but something orange grabbed her purple predators, something that was very, very familiar. She removed the piece of paper off the orangish-item and froze. It was her carrot pen. She had forgotten about it after the decision was made to give it to him which brought about her memories of what she had done in the form of stinging in her heart which she tried to chase away with a hard exhale and the action of grabbing the pen.

The question remained, had he deleted the recording? With small amounts of hesitation, she pressed on the button and the same exact recording that she had listened to quite a bit began playing which drooped her ears from the large amount of bewilderment. Why hadn't he deleted it, it was incriminating and this wasn't very bright of him to keep. She thought of doing it for him for a second but then understood that after she had given the pen to him, it meant that it was his decision to make and not hers, thus she put the pen close to the framed photo and angled her body to the side of the chair.

With a hop off the stool, she moved by the wardrobe and what she saw in the corner got her breath to stop because in front stood a big LED TV which was something she only saw in commercials when she would watch broadcasts with her siblings at her home. But the more serious question was how he had managed to squeeze it down there from that hatch that wasn't big enough at all. It was impossible for the bigly-thin idiot box to go through there but it was in the room, nevertheless. Puzzlement for another time.

She got close to the sofa that was from black leather with some blankets sprawled around as if someone was sitting there not long ago while the bed behind it had a disgruntled blanket and pillows which weren't properly placed while her eyes found traces of red fur on the sheets and her nose the scent of familiar musk which meant that this was his lair, his den. And it was like an actual den, underground, warm and welcoming.

The planks under her feet were making her feel normal, the air from the vents that came and left was keeping the temperature steady and the air fresh, the light was enough for her to see normally and the place just seemed surreal, it was so incredible, so likable. It was like her home burrow and that was the sole reason to her liking of the place as it was underground and secluded, something that when you get used to it's hard to not miss when it's gone.

On the drawer just next to the bed was a red napkin which was recognizable to her eyes, as if she had seen it somewhere from before, as if he had done something with it which had imprinted itself in her memory. Blueberries. It was when he had stolen some blueberries from a stand when she was confronting him about hustling her. Yes, he had put them in that same red napkin but why was it laying so close to him and what did it mean for him. Another question for another time.

Just above that drawer was a poster which made her body to flush in embarrassment because there was a fully naked red vixen who was suggestively licking the side of her mouth with half-closed eyes, her puffy-creamy chest bare while one of her paws was inside that creamy fur, her long beige claws being visibly outlined between the furs while the other went down towards her core in an arousing fashion while her bushy white-tipped tail obscured what the imagination was revealing. That got Judy to nervously chuckle while her cheeks felt warmer than normal and she moved her gaze to the lower right corner where with a black marker were the writings 'To my bestie, Nick! Don't show this to Nas if you don't want her to let you hangin'' and it ended with a badly drawn winking face, resembling a fox.

The words made her puzzled. From whom was this lewd poster and who was Nas? Did he already have somebody in his life and was that the reason that she was being pushed away because he couldn't betray someone else to whom he was devoted to? If that was the reason, she didn't know what to think. It made her feel disgusted from herself for trying to take someone who was already taken but nothing was certain until she asked, and until then, until then she would keep the doubts just doubts.

Judy wanted to explore more of the room but that was when she felt pressure around the region of her underbelly, more specifically in her angry bladder which meant only one thing, she needed to relieve herself and fast. There had to be a toilet somewhere in there and when she saw another slightly opened mass of steel, close to the entrance, she dashed towards it while holding paws over her nethers where pressure was beginning to increase and her teeth pushed against one another in nervousness and agitation.

She passed by the thick door and was met by a corridor which's walls as well as ceiling were of solid concrete with small cobwebs around the corners, only the floor being covered with planks, but not as vibrant as the ones in the main room. The light in that said corridor was dim just as the one at the entrance, red and gloomy which was unlikable to her but it didn't matter. As she pressed on, there was a normal wood door on the left which she was to open if she hadn't heard humming just close to the end of the walking space where she could see brighter light and hear flowing of water. The corridor got a little narrower and she saw on her right an even bigger blast door that was closed shut with a keypad next to it but the pressure between her legs got her to quickly stop her observations and her to rush into the opened brightly-glowing room from where steam was escaping.

Just as she was about to start talking to Nick about the issue at paw, she took a step inside what seemed to be the bathroom but when she did, her eyes spotted a very familiar red-furred mammal who was soaked with water from the head to toes. What was more important was the fact that he didn't have anything on him and she could visibly see his rump that was outlined because the water had glued the fur against his skin, thus making his lean body very visible and outlining his firm muscles which weren't out of shape. His tail was hanging to the floor like a broom and she swore that when it moved she saw something whitish between his legs while he scrubbed his ears, making them foam from the soapish substance.

With a swift motion, she exited the bathroom and hugged the wall with her back while her heart hammered in her ears and cheeks burned with embarrassment which was creating another sort of pressure between her thighs, one that was overpowering the urge of nature in another sort of way. He was naked and didn't have a clue that she had seen him, she had seen everything! But that wasn't true, she hadn't seen everything and just as she was to peek again from morbid curiosity, she pushed herself back in bewilderment of what she wanted to do. This was the last straw in the invasion of his privacy and what she thought of doing was not right, it was perverted and unfair.

Biting her lips, her mind really wanted to know what it looked like, how he looked like. Her imagination was running wild, did it have small spikes or a strange shape? How did it look like… She put both her paws on her head and growled from sensual frustration which she never remembered having experienced before simply due to the fact that there wasn't any interest on her part back then even when she would get triers from time to time in Bunnyburrow. But none of them could compare to the roguish fox behind the wall, the excitement she was feeling within her belly was just overwhelming and was pushing her naughtiness up and up until the only way she saw that could stifle it was just to feed her curiosity with images, images of increasing hotness and ampleness of lewdness.

 _I can't believe I'm doing this…_ She breathed deeply and peeked slowly inside, under the obscurity of the doorsteps while on her knees, and was met again with the sight of a drenched in water fox that was now scrubbing his back and when this time his tail swooshed to the other side, she saw two creamy-furred objects between his legs that made her mouth to open and loins to fire up because she knew what those two sacks were and what she now was interested in seeing was his front because she had had an eyeful of his backside which was hiding the glorious front that definitely had different alluring shades.

Steam was being sucked into the vent that was going through the wall and she could feel the hot steamy-rogue air brush against her flushed cheeks as it escaped into the corridor that now felt uninviting, the same could be said about her clothes which were making her distractingly annoyed with their presence. Blood was rushing to her core and the warmth was getting uncomfortable which was making her rub her thighs while not even blinking because of fear that she would miss something from the unknown-to-Nick show.

He was humming something while water splashed onto the white-bluish tiles while scrubbing around his tasty back, a back that had foam all around but she managed to spot what looked like claw scars under his right shoulder blade where fur hadn't grown back, scars that made her to subconsciously touch hers on her cheek. His memories of the past were just on the one side and from the looks of it were of two lines but she didn't have time to examine anymore as he turned around with closed eyes and exposed his front, with his tail slapping the tiled wall behind him, to the doe's gawking lilacs that quivered in embarrassment and shame but she didn't move, she didn't dare move because she was sure that he would notice her instantly with his predatory sight. But that wasn't actually true because those same eyes were closed shut.

Even if his creamy chest was soaked in water, it was still puffed while the eye-grabbing shade went downwards towards and around his foxhood but not on his thighs, just till the end of his underbelly and what looked like to be some sort of bulge that had an auburn shade around its top. There was some distance between that bulge and his two sacks that were very firmly attached to him. The sight was watering her mouth and she felt moisture to start forming from her pink pearl which meant one thing, she was finding this excruciatingly exciting and stimulating even if it was just a small piece of the dirty pleasure.

But when the alluring predator opened his eyes, her blood froze and her lungs clogged when she saw his predatory jades move at her direction and stare at the threshold of the entrance for a moment but she remained still, she remained perfectly still, under the protection of the steam and concealment of the doorsteps, which after some moments made those sharp emeralds to move to other parts of the smaller room and him to shrug his shoulders in disinterest and she knew that he hadn't spotted her which released a very steam breath that had fermented inside of her, a breath which made her feel dizzy for just a moment while her heart was pounding in her chest like mad as if she had just had the jog of her life.

She saw him soaping his chest while his mouth remained opened, exposing his sharp ends which were being bathed in hot liquid, followed by wet slaps that he made with a grin. Why was he behaving sultrily when he didn't even know that he was being watched and where was his foxhood, what was in that bulge?

With patience that was being thinned with every passing moment as the fur around her thighs was now bathing in moisture from her nethers, she felt the itchiness to become more and more annoying and irritating as her cheeks were now just too warm for her liking which was stirring ideas that were inproper and inappropriate but wanted and craved for, nevertheless.

Nick moved towards his belly and she could see his obsidian claws leaving foamish lines through his fur and exposing his skin and muscle underneath for mere moments till the disturbed hairs went back to their rightful place. She couldn't take it anymore and with a paw, she pulled her hanging pajama's top up and began copying his motions on her belly which when she touched made her to exhale sharply from the shocking sensitivity that she was at. She tried to imitate the motions with her own short and beige claws and it seemed to be working but when she was met with tufts of entangled fur, slight irritations became known on her face which expressed a scowl.

As he swayed his hips left and right with his tail that moved against the tiles behind him, he reached for his groin and began scrubbing the parts around the auburn-tipped bulge, reaching shortly after his sacks that moved around from the visibly gentle force that he was applying while he cleansed himself. What seemed to be a normal task to him was incredibly sensual for Judy and she was trying not to pant from the heat that was all over her blood while her paw was hesitating to follow his motions and go down there because she didn't know if she could remain hidden if she did but there was that part of her that was nagging her to stop caring, to stop trying to contain herself and just let it go.

Nick just stopped without any notice and stared at his groin with paws on both sides of his bulge which's claws had furrowed into the creamy fur and he was just leering at the spot of his libido. Had he noticed her scent, had he seen or heard her? Why did he stop? Why wasn't he continuing? He had to continue! She saw his tongue to lick the rim of his lips and his grin to widen even further as he left the soap on the shelf and with one paw, grabbed the underside of his bulge and when he did that something reddish poked itself from the top of the auburn-tipped lump. Was that it? Was he going to do it now? It wasn't possible…

He began squeezing the area of his newly-arisen arousal and the red flesh was beginning to crawl outside into the light and it was growing in length and mass which was just making her to gawk stupidly at it because her imagination seemed to have been pretty scarce as it was nothing like she had even imagined in her moments of privacy. The pointy-tipped flesh was beginning to throb and there was a visible circular curve around its head underneath which there were visible veins as well as thickened red which wasn't stopping in its succession of getting out of what seemed to be some sort of a sheath and not a bulge.

Nick was massaging that sheath and she asked herself if it was ever going to stop growing in length until she noticed his sheath to enlarge just at its exit and his member to stop growing, staying fully erect and pointing at the ceiling of the bathroom as if it was a flagpole, a throbbing and fleshy flagpole.

Undescribable, erotic, exciting, animalistic, she didn't know what to think, she didn't know how this was happening without her presence being noticed even when she knew that her scent was one of sizable arousal, arousal that was making her uneasy and very itchy, itchy for being touched and stimulated while that same scent was driving her crazy, it was making her intoxicated, opportunistic and fearless.

That was when she heard a low growl from him and saw his curling lips and one of her ears would've sprung straight if she hadn't grabbed it. Nick moved his head behind the stream of water that was hitting his back and that exposed his length to be bathed in water and remove the foam from around his sheath which's purpose was kinda unknown to her, maybe he was cleaning himself and wasn't going to do anything else? She really didn't know but when he moved aside, with his back absorbing the hot stream of water and him facing the wall that she was previously hugging while she was in the puddle of bashfulness, she saw him open his mouth and drop a hefty string of saliva that fell on top his erection which made her tail to think on its own and get her to push herself slightly backwards from the sensation that brought itching ants of bubbling incitement around the end of her spine while her entrance was starting to riot against her undecisiveness in the form of more warm wetness.

Was he going to do it, was one of her recent fantasies going to become true while in front of her very now-not-so-innocent eyes. From the looks of things it was. His paw that had previously squeezed the sheath now slowly moved towards the tip of his mass of flesh and when it reached the top, it moved down, leaving a trail of saliva in its wake, followed by the same motion that was repeated faster and she was understanding why he had just done that. His increasing pumps made her feel unbearably hot which meant that if she was to continue watching the private and steamy show, she needed to release some steam herself.

 _It has been some time…_ Pulling down her pajamas bottom that was now at her knees, she could feel the hot moisture on the fur around her thighs and trunks, they were pretty soaked but she didn't care at that moment, what needed her attention were her irritated folds which were tingling with desire, desire that was going to be fulfilled to some extent, at least she hoped so.

His hips were thrusting forward as his back arched and his eyes closed, while his paw increased the speed of his rubbings that managed to get his arousal to leak from the top. Had he reached his peak? But she hadn't even started yet. He wasn't stopping tho even if his tip was continuing to leak fluids that were going down his angry flesh while her own paw was now at the front of her heat and in a last futile attempt, her mind tried to stop her.

What she was doing was so wrong, it was so wrong on so many reasons, so many reasons to stop, yet it felt so right, it felt as if this was what she needed and wanted even if embarrassment and shyness was present like never before. But so was her fiery determination that was derived from the sensual excitement that had made her drunk in the pursuit of pleasure that had been prolonged for so long. Couldn't she feel alive after so much time of working towards a goal that was now gone? A goal that had restricted her, a goal that had imposed its reign in the form of constant work and tiredness. She had that right.

With a light exhale, she reached with her paw between her legs and touched the nub of her clit, touch from which she would've fallen on the ground, if she wasn't already on her knees, because of the nerve-melting sensation that jolted electricity through her mind and made her vision to blur for just a moment. Shivers ran through her spine and her fingers pushed down around her swollen nub and around her folds that visibly had a brighter pinkish color around the exposed flesh around the middle of her pearl. The silver fur around her mound was soaked in her own juices and some sticky drops fell onto the wooden steps but she didn't see that, only stared at the red vulpine that was pleasuring himself without stopping while his member that was leaking, now had a whitish-colored liquid that looked a lot like actual cream.

She couldn't wait and tease herself, she needed to catch up and that meant one thing, she needed to dig in. With a single finger, she pushed through the walls of her sex and almost moaned out loud if she hadn't put her free paw, which had been caressing her chest, on her mouth that muffled the song of pleasure. Her finger opened the tight sides and explored the moist walls deeper while pushing straight into her, its motion of entering making her legs to tremble and eyes to almost roll up in breathless excitement. When she pulled out, there was this shlicking noise that made her heart to skip a beat while liquid that had been pushed out from inside leaked and soaked into the silver fur around her entrance.

She feared that Nick might have heard that sound, that he had noticed her doing unimaginable things while he did the same but nothing had changed, just his other paw was now on the other side of his irritated member and behind his two sacks that carried the next generation. What was it doing there exactly and what was he rubbing as she could see his outlined muscles on his forearm to tense every second while the other strangled his one-eyed snake with even more increasing speeds. She was slipping into exhilarating madness and her finger pushed itself inside again even deeper which got her to exhale sharply but she didn't stop there and began fingering herself with quicker motions, the low sound of moisture squeezing between flesh making its presence known by the quiet squishes and gulches that were making her core to burn with greater intensity and strength while low gasps escaped her mouth with steamy breaths.

She was popping all her nerve endings and now couldn't control her pants like the agitated fox just a few meters away from her whose knees were shaking while steam brushed and clung onto his fur while his active paw was now outright soaked in that same liquid that had that whitish-color and the bulge in the sheath had started poking through the auburn-tipped top but she was losing focus as she was in the center of the puddle of pleasure and the feeling of being close to release was strong, it was primal and wanted. She could see his gritted teeth and knew that sooner or later he would reach his peak but she wanted to be first.

That was when she pushed another finger inside of her but it was too much and a loud moan escaped her mouth which got Nick's ears to twitch and head to dart at the direction of the sound. But Judy was long gone as she was hugging the wall with a restless chest while trying to put on her damp trunks on her irritated and unsatisfied pool of moisture, she was angry and scared at the same time. What she needed to do was to put on her pants and get out of there because her scent would be easily caught by his sensitive nose. She knew that the vents had managed to suck up the air filled with hormones and arousal but if he was to get close to her, there wouldn't be a chance to dodge his purple detector.

She needed to g— "Fluff, was that you?" shouted Nick from the shower and mortification overtook her, he knew she was there, he had seen her… She couldn't try to dodge this, she needed to steer his attention away and make it seem like nothing had really happened even if she had just played with herself while enjoying the show he had unintentionally prepared for her.

"Y-yes… you in there?" she asked innocently with a foot that was thumping the air.

"What was that sound?" he asked and she caught the clear curiosity in his voice.

"It was so big…" _Are you insane!?_ "Your place is so big… I got frustrated because I couldn't find the bathroom…" she managed to finish while her heart beated viciously with stress-filled blood and anxiety which was taking away her breath.

"Yea… it's big…" he returned with confidence and she would've snorted if she wasn't in a very delicate situation.

"What are you doing in there? Can I come in?" she tried to get him to stop talking as she knew what was in his paws, something that wasn't going to just go back after all the attention that he had given it.

"Hah… Just showering… just showering e— I'm just finishing… uhm… cleaning myself soo… yea… just give me a minute," he finished without much confidence and she sighed into her legs in relief. She didn't really need to use the bathroom anymore, her libido had replaced that pressure with a more dangerous one, one that was clouding her mind and making her impulsive as her soaked in stickiness and slickness paw tried to snake into her pants yet again but she hissed and grabbed it in annoyance. Thinking of what to do, she moved the finger that had given her the thrill of excitement and took a sniff which had a sweet aroma and just made her even more craving for more which just got her to groan and whimper in despair with a wanting-to-thump leg and shaking knees.

It took Nick around a few minutes to stop the shower but her sexual libido was still strong and she just wanted to get in there and get it over with but first, the alluring male had to get his sexy butt out of there. When she heard the scraping of claws close to the exit, she quickly stood up and just waited for him to start talking.

"Fluff, could you get me the to—" she quickly got inside the bathroom and what she saw got her to eeep with paws on her mouth because it was Nick again without anything but now his auburn-tipped sheath was holding his crimson flesh and hiding it from her hungry and embarrassed eyes. She would've blushed if she already wasn't feeling hot like a raging fire but her eyes weren't moving away from his furry sheath, she couldn't move them away.

"—wel…" he finished with a look that was expressing his inability to react as his nose twitched once and he began taking deep sniffs to which she reacted instantly with deeply reddened cheeks and pushed him desperately outside while saying very fast, "J-j-just go!" and closed the door with heavy pants and wobbly legs. Her jaw was quivering and loins were just burning. She had seen him and was now caught, and it was just in front of him. She could hear him sniffing from outside and prayed to the Carrot Lord to help her chase away her scent of want.

Wobbling towards the sink that was under the head of the vent, she put everything from her breast pocket onto its white porcelain surface and undressed herself but when she began removing her underwear and saw its condition, she couldn't hold herself and brought it close to her nose, taking a deep sniff which made her jump in place and throw them at the floor from agitation as the smell was just too sharp and packed with intensity, intensity that excited her too much. The idea when she had climbed down the ladder was to just get herself ready for the morning, not have a lengthy pleasuring session which now meant that she would have to take a shower. Maybe even a cold one.

But when she got to the knobs, she hesitated greatly on the blue colored one when at last the decision was made and water flowed through the shower head, water that made her flushed body to become even more so due to its hotness and steamy presence. She needed to hide what was to come from shyness of being watched because in her distracted state that was to come, she could miss him accidently walking in and seeing her just like it had happened with him as there wasn't a lock on the door, figures.

The curtain that was close to her was pulled to the other end and she angled her body so that she would have easy access to her aching mound. Leaning against the cold tiled wall, which made her gasp in dislike but it was short-lived, she spread her legs and could see the sticky, having lost its transparency and developed a whitish texture, fluid fall to the floor due to its mixing with the water. She had to make it quick and with a small smile of satisfaction of what was to come, she pushed two fingers inside and moaned under the protection of the noisy falling water. She really just wanted to lay down and relax but the circumstances weren't allowing her to do so and she had to make due with what was at paw.

Therefor, with continuous motions and thrusts inside, she began stimulating her blooming flower and could feel her breath become heavier with each grind. Her tail was wiggling in excitement while her ears would occasionally try to go up in response to her hitting the right spot but would droop down from exhaustion as she was getting tired from the uncomfortable position which was the best she could do. Her wet and slick folds were starting to squeeze on her fingers, eliciting hard gasps from her mouth, and she could feel the bubbling pressure inside to climb up and try to escape, that meant that it was just a matter of a few more good rubs that would get her to release.

The pressure was getting out of paw and her legs were shaking for the stimuli which was getting her to moan more and more desperately when at last her body tensed savagely and her fingers were sucked in while her legs gave out after which she fell on the floor with rapid pants and eyes that had almost rolled up. Her walls were pulsating around her pleasuring tools and she could feel even more moisture to accumulate inside while the feeling of ecstasy jumped around all her nerves and had her turned into a puddle of unrensposiveness. It felt unreal and ridiculously amazing. She forced her fingers out of her tight arousal and that created a very loud plopping sound that managed to stimulate the spot yet again and her to shiver in delight.

With a paw, she moved it through the soaked fur on her chest and purred in satisfaction while her pearl dripped fluids of supposed intercourse onto the warm and wet floor. There was no will to get up and get ready for the day, there was the feeling of sleep and tiredness while there was the presence of fulfillment and joy which was dancing around her skin and heart as well as loins, especially the insides of her flushed core which made her to hug herself with a warm smile, closed eyes and calming breaths.

She couldn't remember having had such an intense orgasm in her previous acts of self-satisfaction which just fueled more of her imagination of what could be done next, imagination that included a red fox with a dripply-red rod. But those were fantasies and right now it didn't matter, all that mattered that she was still feeling the itches of bliss, the itches of stifling horniness. There was just one simple word that could describe her mood.

Euphoric.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

\- _What the fuck? Where did this come from after all the shit that happened? And why did Judy stay and watched, even going to such lengths as to play around! She is shy about these stuff and easily embarrassed! Sure she is but because she wasn't spotted, curiosity and sensuality persevered and fueled her resolve to remain still after which the drunken pleasure just chased away those traits into deep darkness. No whining, just enjoyment. Did Nick find out what had happened? Did Judy cross a line? Why are both of them doing such stupid shit? Simple, they are mammals and mammals do stupid shit no matter how bright they are especially when they explore new horizons, no matter if there is some experience or none._

\- _I've decided to add a legend for more complicated words at the end of each chapter as well as ones that would be created and are already done which would be added to previous ones but not immediately because it isn't easy to go over 200 pages of text, right? Gotta change this to explicit, heh. Hugs and kisses._

 **Social Links:**

\- **Twitter:** _InletReal_

\- **Tumblr:** _inlet-oc_

\- **Youtube:** _Inlet_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_

\- **MisterSmail's AO3 Page:** _Mister_Smail_

\- **MisterSmail's FanFiction Page:** _Mister Smail_


	24. History

**History**

* * *

The gentle sound of air moving into the vents above with the lowly-audible running water behind the wall was the only thing that could be heard in the underground place of mysteries, a place where a certain fox was waiting with crossed arms and back against the steel blast door. He seemed deep in thought with eyes aimed at nothing in particular while his fingers would twitch every now and then as well as his nose from the forced inhales he was making.

The water stopped flowing and after a few moments of eerie ambience, wet slaps were heard and at last the wooden door opened with its unoiled hinges and from behind came out a grey bunny who had one of Nick's towels around her chest and hips while the rest of her fur was hugging her skin because of the major dampness from the shower she seemed to have taken, whilst her paws held her checked pajamas and grooming brush.

"I thought you might've drowned," began Nick with snarkiness and moved closer to the visibly energized doe who smiled awkwardly in response.

"Had to brush my teeth… Where is your fur drier?" she asked while playing with her weight on the soles of her feet.

"Who said I had one?" he returned and moved closer to her which made her wavering smile even more desperate. He was visibly searching for something because his nose was giving him away, it had to be her scent when she had pushed him out of the room, scent that was enriched in her excitement that she had indulged herself in before almost being caught and after not having been. He was doubtful but unsure, that was for sure, thus she titled her head and morphed her insecure smile into a confident smirk which managed to stop the curious vulpine and after some seconds of seriousness, he sighed and motioned to her with his paw to follow him.

They entered the main room and she stopped as to explore other details she had previously missed in her adventure for the search of Nick. It was a strange place in a strange spot and because it was equipped with almost everything, she really wanted to know about the bunker's history but first she needed to get decent and dry.

She saw him go to the drawer near his bed and pull out what looked like a blower that was as big as his paw which he plugged into the power and it roared to life, blowing the fur on his forearm but he stopped the little piece of technology and turned his eyes at the wet doe who was holding the towel around herself in nervous anticipation.

He slightly moved his head down which she understood as 'come here' and that was what she did with short steps which slapped on the planked floor. As she was close, he patted a spot on the bed and she complied, sitting on her butt and waiting for him to pass her the warmth projector. But when she did, something odd happened, he just stood there and looked at her which was starting to make her feel uncomfortable as she wanted some privacy just for a bit until she was done.

His boxers and short-sleeved shirt, shirt that seemed to be a bit small for him, as it was exposing some fur on his belly, was grabbing her eyes and that was giving birth to that feeling of carnality in her again but it wasn't as powerful as before, thank God. "Nick… you're staring…" she mumbled but it was loud enough for the tod to understand the issue as his ears fell a bit with shock entering his initials but then came about a light snicker with him rubbing the top of his muzzle.

"Sorry… it was just that you a—… ehm… I'll be on my desk 'till you get ready," he apologized strangely and began walking towards his chair but what he had just said got her ears to spring up so fast that water sprayed the ceiling while warmth generated on her silver cheeks. She knew what she had done previously and that what she was getting flustered about now was like a minor issue but that was without his knowledge of her doing that session, unlike now. Now, now it wasn't the same even if it was just nudeness and her breath was enriched with heaviness while her heart with the burden of hyperactivity.

"Wait… Can't you go out the room?" her innocently-asked request got the reynard to stop and turn his head towards her with raised eyebrows.

"Does it…"-he scratched his hackles in visible understanding-"I'll be with my back at you and I'll not look. Do you think that I would?" he asked and in a sense, that question managed to corner her because his seriousness and her belief in the good of him was just making her unable to say yes. At least she had released the previously-generated steam so her scent was normal with just a blush being lightly-visible on her silver cheeks.

But even so, she didn't feel comfortable being exposed like that and the chance of him having even an accidental glance was just making her reluctant in doing so and she was just about to head to the bathroom when she heard him sigh and carry one of the chairs, that was near the table in the center of the room, next to her with its back.

"Okay. You sprawl your towel over its back and it becomes like a divider. That okay now?" His improvised solving of the problem actually managed to get her to lightly smile and she nodded in response to which he dusted off his paws and concluded, "Great! Chop-chop."

With a swoosh and a wagging tail behind him, he headed towards his desk and Judy nervously put her two pieces of clothing and brush on the bed after which she hesitantly removed the body-obscuring towel and did as Nick had told her, sprawling it well and managing to hide herself from his view which was succeeding in bringing some comfort within yet she was still kinda trying to hide herself by squeezing her thighs together and with arms in front which were in the form of a self-hug.

With a skeptical peek around the barrier that was keeping her away from exposure, she saw that he had done as promised, being on the chair on his desk and visibly scribbling something on some papers to which she smiled in gratitude and reached for the fur drier which's button she quickly pressed, thus feeling the hot air against her heavy fur in an instant.

Something was off tho, something was bugging her and it wasn't hard to find out what because the feeling of attachment to the place where Nick was living was growing and she was really liking it. Maybe it was unfair of her but she hoped that there could be a universe where she would stay with him and just enjoy his company while she tinkered on what to do after having failed herself and having lost her dream she carried since childhood.

Pulling one of her legs closer to her body, bending it so she could reach, she began spraying it with the humidity-exterminator which was tickling her inner thigh and seemed to be doing its job rather efficiently. But the question came of what she was to do? Was she to just get a normal job and just grind it until she could do no more?

That sounded extremely discouraging and wasteful to her abilities and sense of adventure. Hell, she had already done that before joining the academy. The only thing keeping her stable and still optimistic was the fact that she had a goal to get closer to the loin-itching red fox who she had really began to like more and more because he seemed to care for her even if he had made several gut-wrenching mistakes.

But everyone made mistakes, no one was perfect, he hadn't done them because he enjoyed himself seeing her hurt. He was a mammal who wouldn't have moved a finger if he didn't care for someone and by putting himself on the line as well as at the police's spotlight, he was risking his tail by a ton. And just for her! He had hurt her but she knew that it hadn't been a painless process for him as well, the shame and guilt had been very visible during their heart to heart emotional trainwreck in the park.

She wanted to bringforth the good of him, the gentle and loving fox she saw during her moments of despair, during her moments of vulnerability. The cunning and calculating side of his wasn't bad but it was cold and it scared her because she could remember from reading about mammals like murderers or serial killers about their pasts and how they had gotten to where they were. It had all started with that same coldness and developed to something irreversible and dangerous.

Nick wasn't such a mammal but that didn't mean that it couldn't happen at some point throughout time. What if it had already happened? She still didn't know much about him or his past, just his personality which she really enjoyed because he could always make her smile, or hit him.

He was a mammal who hid himself pretty well under his humor and reluctance to say what he truly felt and she knew that he didn't like being seen vulnerable or weak and nor did she but if it was only between them, would it actually be something embarrassing? Wouldn't that mean that they trusted each other completely by showing off their unwanted side, a side was meant to be hidden and pushed away.

Maybe. Maybe that was it but first, first she needed to get decent and feed her curiosity because he hadn't said anything about the place and she wasn't able to find information on her own yet as that would need her to start digging around which was kinda unacceptable, at least at that very moment.

Having dried herself whole, she stopped the now-hot dryer and laid it to rest on the drawer where the red napkin was and grabbed the brush after which she quickly began tracing lines all around her body in a pattern which was starting to make her look more orderly and attractive as the tufts which were previously present were now nowhere to be seen.

She figured to use the opportunity and try to find out more about the bunker, so with a very curious voice, she began, "Nick, what is this place?"

As she made some finishing motions around her rump and underbelly, the voice of the cheeky tod became known to her. "I live here."

The answer carried some audible humor and that got her to frown with huddled together brows while the brush worked itself around her stomach. "Don't do this now… Just tell me…" she begged in a way which got the vulpine to chuckle.

"Ugh… you bunnies. Right. So as I said, I live here, in a bunker of all places. And no, it wasn't me who built it. I'm not that rich"-a doubtful huff came out of Judy's half-smile-"but what I know is that the mammal from whom I bought the place definitely didn't know what was under this hangar. I don't think he had ever even set foot here… Ooor if he had, the thorns that were all around had probably made him quit."

Judy reached for her puffed chest and with undivided attention kept on listening, "The place wasn't in good of a shape when I found it but it had the basics on which, as you can see, I worked on. Itturned this moldy and cold place into a heaven"-a nervous chuckle came from him-"it took quite some work to be honest."

There was a really important question which was annoying her mind as she couldn't find the answer herself. "But what was this place used for?"

"Hmmm… from what I can remember the place above was a commercial airfield that developed airplanes before I was even born. But it seemed that something happened, like a competitor of theirs bought them… I think… and just closed the place. What I found was that the company B.D-M. were the ones that did so. You know, the organization that built Zootopia?" Of course she knew, the first thing she did when working towards her goal was to learn more about Zootopia's history and how could one not know the company that was solely responsible about the giant metropolis's existence.

She didn't know much details about them but from what she had heard, the company was prestigious and because of its scientific breakthroughs, the world was becoming a better place which was something she was grateful for. But why had they bought off the place and then just abandoned it? That seemed like a pretty low blow if what Nick had told her was true.

"What about this… bunker?" she asked hesitantly, having finished her last touches to her fluffy chest and now taking care of her back, well as best as she was able to.

"Den," he returned strongly from his desk which confused her so much that she ahemed audibly. "Call it a den," he repeated and she could picture his smirk which she was matching because at least he wasn't acting gloomy for which she was thankful as that was helping her to stay positive and energized.

"Okay… what about this _den,_ " she asked and emphasized on the wanted word with a mischievous smile and the feeling of nervousness from her indecency was starting to fade away which got her to release the pressure that her thighs were making and let them rest, a decision that made her feel way more relaxed and at ease.

"This den used to be some doomsday scenario last resort for someone who probably was loving their life too much. That mammal had files on top of files about past events like accidents, conflicts and whatever else I can't remember. The strange part was that in those files I found links to those guys at the B.D-M. but nothing written from him, just circled dates, names and words which just didn't speak anything to me." Now that grabbed her attention so hard that she just stopped grooming herself and almost ran next to Nick if it wasn't the realization that she was still naked which got her to shyly continue with a thumping-the-air leg.

Judy really wanted to know more as excitement had filled her up from the end of her feet to the top of her ears but Nick had stopped talking and she was now squirming on the end of his comfortable bed. Why wasn't he continuing? What had made him stop? What was left to groom was her head and ears and because of that, she decided to put on her pajamas and go to him.

With a quick swoop, she grabbed her pajama's bottom, jumped off the bed and pulled it up her legs and rump while trying to hit her tail in the tailhole which was achieved easily and she let it go with a satisfying snap. But as realization dawned upon her that she had forgotten to put her trunks, she almost removed the piece of clothing if it was not for the memory that they were under the sink in the bathroom, still heavily scented in her juices of excitement. Kinda ashamed of what she had done, she jumped onto the bed again and began putting on her checked top and when she finished and was just about to go to Nick, she heard some commotion and rummaging of papers.

"Fluff, have you been going over my laptop?" he asked audibly and her erect ears just fell on her back as he somehow had managed to catch her doing things she knew she shouldn't have.

She had tried to but when her curiosity was met with the password, the decision was made not to try anything else, thus that meant that she hadn't gone over it and it wouldn't be a lie if she answered truthfully even when she knew her intentions pretty well. "Ahm… no?" was her answer which got her to forget about the den's past and push herself a little further into the heavenly bed which's scent of musk was starting to become stronger as well as charming as her eyelids started gaining more weight.

"Are you decent?" he asked and she heard movement.

"Yes b—" Quick footsteps became known to her hearing that got her to bent both her legs and pull them towards her in an attempt to shield herself.

Nick got in her view and stopped just next to the chair with a visibly serious expression while he supported himself with one paw that touched the towel and just gazed at her as if he was disappointed but she didn't react, just stared back from between her ankles with a nervous smile and occasionally betraying nose.

She couldn't understand if he was being serious or was toying with her because his body wasn't misleading anything and that was getting her heart to beat faster and faster while her paws itched in restlessness until the tod cracked a small smile and snickered. "You're just too cute…"

She immediately released her legs and scowled at him, "Hey d—"

"To not call you cute? Then stop being so damn cute, Fluff…"-she wasn't able to retort at that very moment as his words sounded more like a compliment than teasing, a compliment that got her speechless-"You cunning bunny, you think I wouldn't have found out? "Her blood froze in her veins and she just stood motionless, gawking stupidly at Nick whose smirk turned heavy which filled her with mortification. How had he found out? Probably she hadn't heard right… But she had and what was she to say? Sorry for peeping on you as well as pleasuring myself while doing so? How was that going to justify what she had done. Was there even a way to justify it?

"I-I-I… It was j-j—" she stopped as he leaned closer to her but it seemed that his face betrayed him as it turned into an outright 'got ya' grin.

His paw moved closer to her head and she slightly moved back from instinct but stopped herself and gazed into it as there seemed to be something between his fingers. It looked like… grey fur. "You snooping bunny," he declared jovially as if he was actually admiring her to which she looked at him from the corner of her eyes and smiled innocently which earned her a snort and the ruffling of the already disgruntled fur on her temple that slightly got her to frown but the gratification that she wasn't put in an endless corner was great.

He didn't know about that, at least he wasn't going to start talking about it which meant that she was in the clear, for now. But his warm attitude managed to fill her with more energy and she felt daring so when he chuckled and tried to go back from hence he came, she grabbed the end of his auburn-tipped tail and pulled him back, a pull that earned her a light yelp. His head turned towards her with surprise and it was her turn to actually smirk.

"What is it?" he asked and she went through what she wanted one more time because uncertainty was still present but she knew that it would be enjoyable as well as fun.

"I want you to finish what you started while grooming my ears and head because you ruffled it you jerk!" she requested with a very warm tone and pulled his tail lightly towards the bed but he didn't budge as his face was now one of seriousness and it didn't take him long to turn his fully body around and face her but she wasn't letting go.

"Fluff, this is—"

He tried to argue but she intervened, "Stop overthinking it and come on, please…" A heavy groan went through his lips while he mumbled something very lightly but then closed the distance and was now just in front of her.

He looked at her paw that was holding him hostage and added, "I'm not going to run away…" but she only increased her grip which got him to snort and grab the fur brush that was on her side but when he reached for her, she actually pulled away and looked at him with brows huddled together which visibly confused him.

"I want to lean on something," she added from out of the blue and patted the spot behind her where the sheets were entangled into a ball. Nick's mouth moved both sides until he rolled his eyes and jumped on the bed, getting the mattress to bounce and pull a small eeep from Judy who at last let go of his captive and smooth tail.

She felt his legs behind her tail but it seemed that he had crossed them. She didn't want that and thus quickly angled her head backwards and began pulling the fur on his limbs as to get him to understand which he did after some strained staring and put them around her, circling her whole with his legs while going under her half-bent ones. That was when she leaned into him but not before putting her ears over her head.

"If Fin sees me… I won't hear the end of it, heh."

"As if you care… this is between us," she retorted with a hum and nestled her head further into his chest and that was when she felt the brush over her sensitive ears which got her to push her back forward in a moment of giddiness and slumped it back with a smile. It always felt good when she did it herself but when someone else was doing it, it was just pure bliss. And that bliss was something she rarely experienced because she let only her mother and her sister Jennie to do that for her simply because those were the only mammals she trusted most.

"I wasn't in the wrong when I said that you aren't a normal bunny. Your ears are bigger than what I've seen usually," he said from above her head while not stopping the soothing and gentle motions which were melting her just like his words which were devoid of any sarcasm but overflowing with actual truthfulness. That got the insides of those caressed appendages to fill with more blood and turn dark pinkish because that was a very big compliment for her, a compliment that, with the lovable motions, made her purr in delight and hug herself as she bit her lip.

A snicker vocalized from Nick and then he continued, "Actually I found the mammal's writings in the storage room if I recall correctly. In a hidden compartment where it seemed he stored the wood." A shiver ran through Judy because more was about to resurface about the mysterious mammal.

"He never specified his name, age or species tho. At least I can guess that he was at my height because of the size of the place. It was a journal for keeping track of food and supplies but at least the year was there. The date was going back more than 60 years"-her eyes widened when he said that and it seemed that he had sensed her amazement-"his last entry was 50 years ago where what was written actually made me a bit terrified of the place," he said as he moved the brush over her head and resumed the grooming but the doe was more focused on his words than the act of affection she was receiving.

What was written that was able to terrify him? That was what she wanted to know. And why was the mammal's entry 50 years ago? Had he died? She wanted to find out thus remained quiet. "The mammal had written to not believe what we see, that everything is a lie. He had specified that they had done something to him, that they were searching for him." Something in the vents clanked which got Judy to gasp and quiver into the fox behind her while her heart tried to jump out of her body as Nick only chuckled but not before putting his tail in front of her and covering her front, a tail which she took and pulled closer to herself.

"You don't know how hard for me it was to read those words, they were scribbled as if he had done that blind. The strange part was that the next pages had the same words written in big letters and they were always the same, always 'LIES'. Maybe he was insane, that was what I thought back then."

"Was he insane?" Judy quickly asked which got him to stop the grooming for a moment but resumed it with some nervousness in his voice.

"The last pages had blood all over them as well as rips and tears, probably from claw marks. I mean that would be enough to say that he was out of his mind but I didn't tell you what I found when I first came down here."

"What was it?" she piped in because her heart was just racing as well as her mind in the search of answers with the clues she was receiving.

"The hatch above? It was welded shut and the closet was filled with all kinds of trash. I was so thankful to Fin that he came with me. I don't know if I would've been able to come down here on my own. It was so ghastly…"-Judy gulped with strain and pushed her head into his tail-"When we climbed down, there was no light, it was even hard for me to see. When we flicked the flashlights, the blast door, that one,"-he pointed at the one that was near his desk-"it was blown off its hinges, don't ask me how that's possible. The walls around it were in a normal moldy condition but there was no sign of an explosion yet the hinges and locking mechanism were somehow severed."

"What could possible go through thick steel in such a manner and at that!? 50 years ago!" he said in distress and Judy didn't know what to think. What could've done that. No. More importantly who had done that and how? She could see the thick blast door, and someone going through that mass of solidity seemed rather impossible to her and it sounded a bit made up.

"Why is the door standing then?" she asked and heard him huff as if he didn't like it that she wasn't believing him.

"I found a mammal who helped me repair it. Don't ask how we got it up, that thing weights a ton. You can go check out the holes which we filled with melted steel as well as the four additional holes in the frame which are the new ones." She was going to do that but not before him finishing his story, yet it was the grooming that was holding her curiosity from leaking all over the place.

"We didn't find anything else other than that the place was ransacked, nothing was salvageable other than the actual den itself. At least they hadn't broken the vents or the pipes. That would've been so hard to fix." Alarms were ringing in Judy's head, the place was broken into because it definitely had something important to someone.

"What about the mammal? Any blood or casings? What about b—"

"Nothing, Fluff. Not even bones. I asked the previous owner if he knew anything about the history of the place but he didn't tell me anything interesting, only added that the previous owners were mammals who didn't even meet him, just used a lawyer who sealed the deal." This sounded fishy to her, everything was adding up to the fact that this mammal, whoever he may have been, was hunted and probably killed. Well he definitely was dead, his last entry being that as old as 50 years but then came out another strange thought of hers. How had Nick made the place so hospitable and likeable.

"Nick, aren't you scared to live here alone?" she asked and felt his sigh on top.

"I was… But you get used to it and besides, only you, Fin and a few other mammals know that I'm here." That confused her a lot.

"Aren't you registered to be living here?" she asked and tried to angle her head so she could meet his eyes but he put her ears in front of which blinded her.

"Nope," was his short and confident reply to which she shook her head and let her well-groomed appendages to fall to her back.

"What do you mean?" she asked but when she did, he stopped grooming her and scooped away which meant that she couldn't lean on him anymore. Sliding off the bed, he pointed towards a chair near the table in the center of the room.

"Take a seat. I'll tell you while I make something for breakfast." When she heard breakfast, everything flushed from her mind as her belly groaned and she rushed towards the table with vigor, almost tripping over her legs in the process as the pampering had made her into a puddle of unresponsiveness.

She got near the chair and took a seat but not without angling her body so she could see the vulpine who took some items from the fridge and neared the stove. His shrunk shirt was exposing fur to her eyes, not that she really had a problem with that as the sight of him in his boxers was pretty interesting to experience. "Nick, why the short shirt?"

"Ain't going to wear my Hawaiian in here as usually I am shirtless… Would you like me to do so?" he asked and turned to look at her suggestively to which she slightly recoiled and shook her head in a decline even if she wanted nothing more but to say yes, yet she couldn't.

"Hmmm… So about your previous question… On paper, I am supposed to live in Sahara Square where Fin is. Officially I own the place there… Eggs?" he asked as he pulled an egg from the carton box he had taken and showed it to her from the stove.

"I don't eat such food…"

He looked at the egg in confusion and dug in, "It's not meat. Come on, you'll like it."

"I'm not supposed to consume it. I'm a rabbit, remember?" she tried to get him to stop trying because of the instinctive fear of eating something different than fruit or vegetables. She had tasted meat in the past with her sister due to a dare but she never did like because it just felt different and kinda off.

"Says who?" he returned with a serious frown.

"Society and my family… I'm not…" she trailed off because she accidently found the fault in her words but it was too late, they were spoken and the reynard seemed slightly disappointed.

"Those that said that you can't be a police officer or something more than the ordinary bunny? Or those that say that I can't be nothing more than a lying fox…" Somehow she had hit a spot where she managed to get to him through her because he was hating the fact that she was limiting herself like he had. She knew that because now he had said it, he didn't believe that he was a good for nothing and cunning fox, at least that's what she understood.

"That's… not what I meant! You can but you saw that I can't!" she exclaimed a bit more loudly than expected and it seemed that this was turning into a flashy argument which just came out of nowhere because of one damn egg.

"You were going to be a great officer. It was just that those FUCKERS…"-his lips curled and he put the egg in the carton because his paws seemed kinda agitated-"sorry… You had succeeded… you were able to do your job and that was exactly why you were fired"-his blazing emeralds were piercing her incredibly passionately-"because you have a sense of justice from which you can't turn a blind eye… You have what many and even I lack…" he finished with gloom at the end and his eyes fell on the planked floor.

His words carrier a sort of fire, a warming kind of one that filled her brightly and she felt a sort of appreciation because even when she told that herself, it wasn't as strong as having someone else doing it for you. He had been right so many times, well without the time when he tried to make her hate him, that was one of his biggest mistakes that she forgave.

She heard rustling of carton and saw him grab that same egg but with an innocent smirk aimed at her. "Egg?"

"No!" she giggled through a forced breath while the tod rolled his eyes and sighed after which he began preparing something else in between as he rummaged through the shelfs.

"Vinegar or not?" was his question that got her to lean her head to the side as she tried to understand what was its context but when she saw the jars of vegetables, she motioned with her head that she didn't want the sour addition to which he nodded and began preparing what looked like to be a bowl as well as a frying pan that was now on the stove.

"This place officially belongs to Fin and is considered an abandoned estate without function. The den is unknown to anyone because it isn't in the schematics… So in short, nobody knows this place exists but those guys from 50 years ago and a few mammals."

The small and always-angry mammal having his paws on the property didn't sound good to Judy so she immediately followed up with a very good question, "What if he decides to kick you out? With his temper, I don't even know how he hasn't done that yet…"

Nick actually laughed out loud in between the throwing of a small block of butter that sizzled on the pan. "You hit the bullseye! But if he kicks me out, I'll kick him out as well and then where would he be? In his filthy van?"

"Ehm, he would come here? This place is amazing… without its disturbing past of course…" She thought that she was right but the vulpine's smirk that could be seen from the side of his mouth just furrowed her brows further.

"He crashed once here because we had worked overtime in our, _near-legal_ endeavors… and I had forgotten something in his van so I decided to go and get it"-Nick's voice was filling with humor and his motions were taunting every word he was saying-"have you ever seen a dead fox that is actually alive? That's how he actually looked! But the dummy tried to play tough guy and so I climbed up the ladder and got to the van," he went through and started chuckling while cracking two eggs and putting them into the sizzling pan.

"Just as I neared the _scaaary_ hatch, I saw a terrified to the bone fennec climbing out as if he was chased the police and he even collided with me! Then he began yelling gibberish from which I managed to understand 'Haunted' and 'Someone's down there'. Then he just continued running and just left with his van. He's never came down her ever since, hah!" Judy tried to laugh but the realization of what the fennec fox must've gone through made her to look around nervously because if she was to be left alone here with what Nick had told her, she would definitely feel unsettling as well.

Nick turned to look at her with narrowed eyes and a very devilish smirk. "But nobody is here but you, me and some innocent spiders. Hell, there aren't even cockroaches. That's how filled the place is. There are no ghosts. No ghosts at all…" he trailed off and silence befell the room, the only sound being that of both their breathing and the baking eggs which began smelling ready.

"I guess there aren't an—" she was interrupted by a loud clank and bang behind her, close to his desk, which got her to spring out of the chair with a galloping heart and enter a defensive position as to repel if someone or something was to attack her. Him bringing the topic about ghosts and the scare she received afterwards was making her mind play with her thoughts and fill her blood with fear of the unknown that had made her fur to stand on an end and breaths to become rapid as well as hard. But then her eyes spotted something reflective under the warm light, something which looked like… a metal spatula.

The guffaw that came about from near the stove made her realize what had transpired and she was to laugh as well if she wasn't intoxicated with adrenaline as well as heightened reflexes which got her to growl lightly. _You're so getting it!_ She turned around in an instant and glared at the out-of-control fox who seemed to have forgotten the eggs as there was now a smell of burning but that didn't matter as she sprinted towards the unexpecting tod, jumped at the rear of his hip and swinged herself around his back, grabbing his meaty ears in the process and pulling them with some force while straddling his back and gluing herself there.

"Ow-ow-hey! Carrots… aha-okay! I'm _sowwy_ ," he laughed through hard breaths and continued chuckling which got her to pull one more time, this one harder than the rest after which she put both paws around his neck and plopped her head between his tortured ears.

"Dumb fox…" she muttered through a smile and felt him snort in response. "Your eggs are becoming ruined, Mr. Ghost." Nick actually yelped and searched for the required tool to get them off that blazing surface but she knew that it was on the floor behind the table to which she whispered in a gigglish fashion "Karma…" and nestled her head into his fur further while watching him as he groaned and grabbed a wooden spoon with which he managed to move the overcooked eggs into a dish. Near that dish was the bowl of what looked like a salad that made her stomach to rumble and mouth to salivate but a _tck-tck_ from Nick's mouth got her look at his muzzle in slight puzzlement.

"One egg," he tried again to which she huffed and would've said no if it wasn't the energy-induced state she was forced into by his playfulness.

"Oookay!" She could feel his outright shit-eating grin as he pulled one egg from the small box and tried to crack it in the metal pan but that was when she scratched the underside of his muzzle that got him to miss and giggle.

"Hey!" This time he was swift and did his job in a matter of a second, the egg falling in the pan and beginning to ready itself for her. She still was unsure as to eat it but what would the problem be? What if she liked it? Well that was what was scaring her if she was to be honest.

She enjoyed being close to him and was glad that he didn't try to push her away as she could remember that night when she had tried to show her feelings and was met with incredible hesitation on his part which brought the question, who was Nas and did he already have someone? But how could she ask discreetly without exposing too much of her dissatisfaction and dissonance? That was the hardest part.

"Nick, what's with that vixen on the wall?" was her entry that was very well played from her part as the tod froze for a moment and sighed with a small smile as he flipped the egg with the makeshift spatula.

"A gift from an old friend. A pretty, pretty gift if I am to say," he concluded to which she felt a flush go through her as she remembered the vixen who really was alluring even to her eyes.

"There was something written about a mammal named Nas. Who is that?" she probed and began caressing his neck in an attempt to get him to relax and feel comfortable in sharing with her which seemed to be doing the trick.

A heavy sigh was heard and he began, "She was someone extremely close to me. A gorgeous white vixen with a very big heart, not as big as yours tho," that comparison got her to squirm in affection with a wiggling tail and rub her chin on his head and she almost did something irreversible from instinct derived from her closeness to the red fox as well as gentleness of his words.

 _I need to control myself…_ A slow breath was what she needed, a breath which caught the aroma of the ready egg which Nick was quick to move into the dish, not overburning it this time, surprisingly. "What happened between you two?" She saw him grab both dishes with the cooked food and felt him move which got her to hold tight.

"We were young and stupid…" He put the dishes on the table close to one another and went back for the bowl and some silverware. She could see an opportunity to joke on his behalf but chose to remain silent from fear that he would dodge the topic or close himself up. "That was when I started stepping over the line of the law and as I saw where things were heading, I had to get her away from me. I didn't want her to pay for my mistakes." Judy could guess how this was going to turn out and that there wasn't going to be a happy ending.

"I did the same thing like with you but in another sort of way… things… they were thought through very thoroughly. In short, I broke her heart and didn't give her a chance to find the truth like I gave you… because… I…" He grabbed the bowl, some forks and a knife and headed towards the table while she could feel his tensed body and increased warmth. This was making him agitated a lot and somehow he had told her a lot. But was that it? Was he going to…

"Shortly after I severed my tie with her, things went to hell… I'm glad I got her out in time… she would've ended just like him…" Now he was shivering and she could see that he was going to drop the bowl sooner or later thus she got off him and gently took it from his paw and rested it on the table where she was to sit after which she got in front of him and gazed into his downcast eyes. "Not yet, Fluff. I can't now…"

"Hey, some other time…" she soothingly reassured and slowly pulled him in a hug which he accepted with tightness and desperation. It seemed that he must've been very lonely all this time and she could remember his unwant for affection before she broke through his barriers. He didn't want to attach himself to anyone else because of the pain he would have to endure if things went south, which they did but she had managed to hold her ground unlike the vixen who probably wasn't given even a small chance. She was grateful that he had cracked because he needed someone, a friend, someone to talk to and be close to, someone that maybe could be more than all that. Maybe.

She had to ask the next question, it was very important to her. "Do you still love her?" Judy whispered from under his muzzle that was resting on her head and she really hoped that the answer would be a negative because if not, things would become complicated in her new goal of hers. Yet she was feeling discomfort for harboring such wishes because if the vixen did have a good heart, she didn't deserve this…

"I used to… but it has been probably 8 years… Time is a bitch…"

"Stop cursing, doofus," she scolded but failed to keep her voice tough all the way she felt a light rumble in his throat.

"I hope that she has moved on as well. She deserves someone better just like you do…" he concluded and hugged the confused bunny who opened her eyes as well as mouth but her words remain hollow as she tried to find an approach to his conclusion. Was that the reason he was holding back? Because of his guilt and belief that he wasn't good enough? But that wasn't true. She needed to make him understand and see. But that talk couldn't happen now, it was an extremely bad time to talk about that because of the topic that was brought up.

Therefor she remained silent and clung onto him in liking of his warmth, scent and closeness. Sometimes actions spoke louder than words as the vulpine seemed to be lost in time as his body had relaxed as well as breaths, while Judy was in the same state. But they needed to eat as the food was getting cold so she caressed his hackles on the small of his back and pulled him out of Nirvana. He shook his head in disorientation and shortly after rubbed her arms, mouthing a 'thank you' in the process.

"Come on, I want your opinion on that tasty egg," he more like ordered and her ears drooped further. She had forgotten about that and as her energy-enriched blood was now filled with affection, she actually was extremely hesitant to do what she had said she would. It seemed that Nick had noticed her hesitation and quipped, "Who knew that a single egg could bring you down, tck-tck…" That was when she had had it and pulled his tail in slight anger, after which she sat on the chair where her dish and bowl were and waited for Nick to join her by her side which he did with light chuckles and an unwavering gaze aimed at her direction.

She started at the white strings and yellow yolk in the middle that seemed unbroken by some luck. There was the smell of burnt butter but it wasn't making her disgusted and she felt her mouth to salivate which got her fur to stand on an end because of how she was behaving. This wasn't normal prey behavior, she shouldn't be doing this but when she saw the excited predator close to her who was looking at her with grave anticipation, she gulped and grabbed the fork that was nearby.

Her fingers were restless and so was her mind where instincts were screaming at her to stop this act against nature yet she pierced the whites and was just about to take a bite from it when she heard the fox next to her to shuffle and move a knife in front of her view. She looked at him with one brow up but understood her fault and smiled awkwardly as she had gotten ahead of herself.

Thus she took the knife and cut the melted food into pieces to her liking. She wasn't liking this even one bit because the smell was starting to get intoxicating and her belly was rioting from her indecisiveness, thus with a final gulp, she pierced the piece of innocent food and put it into her mouth with closed eyes and scrunched face. Surprisingly there wasn't a strong taste, just the feeling of squishy surface and slight hints of butter so she began grinding the small piece in her mouth and it was very easy and somehow satisfying because it was very simple to chew but there wasn't any taste. Why wasn't there any taste?

She looked at Nick expectedly and he was outright grinning in entertainment. "Try the yolk," he added and she figured that he was talking about the yellow substance which she had cut out in a circle. As she gulped the chewed piece of white protein, there was that feeling of wanting more even if it was rather tasteless yet very enjoyable. Was she going insane? With her sharp fork, she pierce the top of the helpless yellow and some of its liquid oozed from its wounds that got her to look at him in puzzlement but received a single nod which meant that everything was alright, hopefully.

With a twitching nose from fear of the unexplored, she moved it close to her nose and inhaled but it was the same light scent of burnt butter and nothing else which just made her restless and she quickly put the whole piece in her mouth and bit through its thin shield, making the sticky substance to spill all over her tongue and teeth and that was when she felt the slightly sweet and very salty-light taste but it wasn't disgusting, it was somehow alright, it was actually somehow put, tasty…

It was so effortless to chew and the feeling so strange as the yellow substance was so sticky and squishy and when she would exhale through her nose, there was that lightly burnt smell, but it wasn't repulsing, it was enjoyable, so enjoyable that she actually smiled while chewing but she was forgetting herself that there was an incredibly mischievous fox near her to whom she moved her eyes but what she saw widened them out of their sockets. He was holding his phone at her and was shaking silently, he was recording her!

"Nwi-k," she tried to say but her mouth was still full of the poor egg and that almost got her to choke from surprise but after she gulped it down, with a quick motion, she jumped on his legs and tried to grab the phone out of his paws but as his arms were longer, she just couldn't reach it as he was blocking her with one of his free paws. "Give it! Give it now!"

Because she was standing on him, she was taller but seeing that she couldn't do anything, she stepped between his legs and crossed both her paws in irritation to which he snapped his jaw at her but she didn't even flinch. "Definitely predator genes here… Revenge for you going through my things," he said and her paws fell to her hips in almost accepted defeat yet she didn't like him having such material for blackmail but she could get him back, maybe even his password…

"Fine…" she mumbled and instead of going to the other chair, she reached for the bowl of salad as well as for her fork that had traces of the recent meal and that was when she heard a sharp exhale from Nick's part which got her tail to wiggle in knowable excitement that she was getting to him in another sort of way.

"What are y—" she looked at him playfully and pulled out her tongue after which she spread both his legs and sat in between while holding the bowl in her paws and pushing herself against him as if he was the chair itself. She could feel movement from his length on her back and even if she was feeling flushed, the decision to act ignorant was done and she remained in the same position while starting to dig in the salad of carrots, pickles, and lettuce which definitely weren't fresh but good enough for her hungry stomach.

Her nose detected excitement from the mammal behind her and she could hear his hardened breathing as well as see his claws which were playing with the table cover a bit too rough. His head came close to hers and she could see the end of his muzzle with his top sharp canines sticking down at her.

"Rabbits shouldn't be standing so close to a predator's teeth, Carrots. Especially while eating," he said in a very playful and filled with audibly sultriness tone which got her to squirm her thighs and feel slightly uncomfortable as she was vulnerable at that very moment and position yet she did the irrational and pushed her rump against him, pushing his growing length against his belly and making him growl in agitation.

"What could happen?" she played along as she bit her lip and felt her tail to just go haywire while her ears filled with more blood as well as her core.

"Fox could happen… mmmhh…" he retorted and let his muzzle fall on her head as he pulled himself backwards towards her ears while grinding her previously groomed-by-him fur. This was heading towards something only in fantasies she dreamed of and it was obvious that he had lost his cool because of her teasing and closeness that she was maintaining when possible. After finding out that nothing was holding her back, she just wanted to succeed and it seemed that she had charmed the growling predator behind her who was deeply sniffing her essence as he got to the base of her ears where he pushed his nose and did more of the same which tickled her and got her to giggle while still munching on the salad that now seemed uninteresting and bland.

"Just a taste…" he repeated lowly and began licking the rim of her sensitive flesh to which she gasped and almost moaned if she hadn't shut her mouth. How had she managed to get him to such a state? Was it because she ate an egg in front of him? Was it because she had broken one of society's rules or was it because he liked her a lot. She hoped that it was all of those specifics but her mind stopped working when his tongue pushed itself through the crease and into the folds where her bare pink flesh was. The one time when she had woken up with her ears in his maw was nothing compared to this. This was loin-exhilarating and knee-buckling.

The act was so likable that she reached for his inner thigh subconsciously and began moving her paws through his soft fur to which the predator released a hot breath and bit her ear, a sudden act that sent electricity down her spine and got her to eeep as well as to almost drop the bowl of salad which got him to freeze dead in his tracks. "What the…" she could feel his head moving and body to instantly tense. "Judy, I'm so sorry! I'll get off, ju—"

"Stay…" she interjected gently and put a reassuring paw on the top of his leg while her head looked straight up, meeting his terrified jades which were glistering under the welcoming light of the bulbs above. "Mating season must be coming close…" she said with an innocent smile and almost slapped herself from the laughable thing she had just spewed because there wasn't such a thing, at least for tens of thousands of years. But it was the only thing that came to mind which wasn't complete insanity.

But even if Nick's brows went up, he seemed rather scared to argue or at least was accepting her attempt of dulling the heated situation. "Yea… mating season…" he repeated sheepishly and grabbed his food that was now cold while Judy continued destroying the vegetable-filled bowl.

Awkward silence fell over the room and even as she was close to the warm predator, things seemed a bit off from the heated exchange which had made her loins itchy yet again but as embarrassment persevered, both their arousal's died down, his shrinking and hers turning into just a small memory.

He was munching the eggs above her and in an attempt to lighten up the mood, she tried to get him out of his gloomy mood by saying, "Can you munch any louder?"

But what she received just made her shoulders to sag. "Sorry," he apologized and closed his mouth to which she just sighed and began destroying the last traces of salad she had. He was visibly embarrassed of himself and so was she because of letting things spiral out of control yet some kind of satisfaction was present, some kind of warm and very gratifying delight.

Having finished their breakfast in the annoying eerie silence, Nick at last spoke out, "Could you?" to which she jumped off the warm chair and followed him with her eyes as he went to the wardrobe with a tail that was almost touching the floor. He was visibly trying so hard not to attach himself further, she knew that it was fear from the past and understood that he needed time.

"Go change into something formal and I'll come up in just a few minutes." He was really going to take her to Downtown as he had asked her to dress herself appropriately which she didn't register as an issue at that very moment.

"Okay. I'll be waiting!" she chirped and bounced on her feet as she passed the blast door but stopped because she wanted to check out if his story was real and after some searching, she found differences in the shade of the paint as well as small deformities, and in the frame there were more holes than necessary which meant that everything was true. And that managed to send a chill through her spine but she shook her head and headed towards the ladder that was illuminated by red light.

After a minute or so, a grey panting bunny exited the hatch and headed with wobbly steps towards the cabin she woke up in. _That was pretty deep…_ She got to her room and felt coldness as the temperature wasn't as controlled as at the den below, so with a hug across her middle, she got to her suitcases and carried them to her disgruntled bed where she opened both and searched for specific clothing, more importantly, underwear she lacked.

She grabbed a pair of purely black trunks and removed her whole pajamas. With a slightly irritated look towards her nethers she mumbled something angrily and put the fresh pair around her hips and waist as well as tail which she skillfully managed to push through the tailhole. Then came the sky-blue jeans which fit her very well and lastly was the collarless button-up white shirt. It was the best formal appearance she had in her disposal and she used her phone's front camera to check herself out.

Everything being in order, she now had to just wait for Nick to come out of that hole in the ground, a hole she really enjoyed being at as it was just heavenly. Maybe it wasn't the place that was making her feel as such, maybe it was the mammal? That was probably it because without him it would've felt lonely. He probably felt lonely, having reacted in such a manner of their closeness and the lack of interest in affection before she re-introduced it to him.

After some minutes of enjoying the calming silence that was broken by light wind against the building, she heard scratches against iron and turned her attention at the opened door where the corridor was. After some moments she saw the bushy tail of a certain red fox and the sound of the closing of a door with a locking following afterwards. He then turned and was out of sight until his entrance became known with amazement and grey doe's widely opened mouth in which a fly would've easily entered if there was one.

It was Nick in a very formal appearance consisting of an ocean-deep coat and trousers which were hugging his body extremely well; a sky-blue button-up shirt; a light-grey tie and a black suitcase that was being carried one of his paws. He looked, "Stunning…" she accidently let out and blushed because he almost seemed to be a different mammal, a mammal who at last smirked and chuckled which meant that he had at least gotten over a bit of his embarrassment.

"Don't feed the fox, Fluff." He came closer to her and readjusted his tie while she couldn't remove her eyes from his elegance. "Don't you have anything more fancy?" he asked to which she only sighed in return. There was never a need of such clothes, she was to be just an officer of the law and nothing more. She could use her parade uniform, that was something very neat and precious to her yet it wasn't going to work well.

"Okay, we're going to find you something to your tastes," his conclusion surprised her immensely and she was to try and fight for her position but felt one of his paws on the small of her back which was steering her towards the door but even as she tried to fight it, somehow her mind was telling her to just go with the flow. If he wanted to do this for her, she should let him do so and not let her ego take charge.

And that was what she did.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

\- Chapter was supposed to be way longer but it will come in another chapter, just need to edit it well. I almost lost both as my files just deleted their contents. Wanted to break something but thank God for cloud service and the option to recover previous files. Plot driven? Only a bit. Fun? Definitely. I reduced Chapter 1 by half and made it more engaging while I added something major in Chapter 2's beginning which is in the form of a mystery. Choo-choo.

\- It's so satisfying when you finish a chapter and think that it is shit of repetitiveness as well as disinterest and then sleep it off and begin editing, thus seeing that it is actually good and well-made. It's a motivating clarity.

\- **Music while writing:** _Megaherz - Roter Mond_

\- **Latest edit:**

\- **Tumblr:** _markovas_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_


	25. Bonds in Mending

**Bonds in Mending**

* * *

"Come on, Fluff, I think my fur is graying…" Nick sassed from behind the curtain that was dividing the changing room from the small lobby while Judy put the last buttons of her formal white-collared shirt inside that same obscured space.

"Why? Does it look so bad on me?" she asked with a smirk of confidence as she checked herself out in the tall mirror, a mirror that showed her incredibly smart appearance, appearance she was enjoying of seeing on herself a bit too much.

"No…"-he tried to regain some lost ground-"it just wouldn't look good on me. And don't put that tie for God's sake." His plead fell on deaf ears as she put the dark-blue tie around her neck and very quickly managed to do a knot in just a matter of a half a minute.

"You just put on the tie, didn't you?" Nick asked in defeat which got her to smile in amusement.

"Yup," she answered happily and eyed herself one more time. The coat and trousers she had chosen were of a light gray texture, in contrast with her darker fur, and she just couldn't keep the delight away from seeing herself like this. The wears were perfect for her body and if one didn't know, one would say that she was congressmammal or an influential business holder. She took a few more drooling moments on her healthy physique and decided that it was time to collect the opinion of a certain impatient fox who was audibly shuffling behind the dividers.

They had checked quite some places around Savanna Central before coming to that shop where Nick had told her that the mammal holding the place owed him a favor so she could choose the most expensive suit she wanted to. Most of the rentable flats they went through were to her liking but she kept that to herself as she didn't want the search to end because her mind had molded an idea that was a bit too Nick-alike.

Pushing the cloth away from her way with a rustling sound which attracted the slightly-annoyed predator's attention, attention that turned from irritation to instant awe as his eyes widened in visible surprise from the sight. It was a reaction she wanted to see and that got her to swish around so he could see her at all angles and that he did with his slightly opened mouth which closed at a certain moment and developed a suggestive smirk.

"What do you think?" she asked and grabbed the lapels of her coat as she waited in anticipation of his next words which she was sure were going to be unexpected.

"Ravishing…" was his only response, a response long enough for her to actually feel embarrassed and huddle her paws together in defensive act as to hide herself from his fiery eyes but her teardrop-like tail wiggled in acceptance. "That tie does look good on you, Miss Hopps."

The formal use of her name managed to stifle her raging emotions and get her in the mood as well. "I told you so, Mr. Wilde."

"Ready to head to Downtown?" he asked in visible excitement.

She was to say yes but then remembered that her previous clothing was still in there. "Where am I to put my other clothes?"

"Hmm? Oh, just bring it here," he said and she entered the little enclosed space, grabbed her jeans and shirt and exited. There was Nick, waiting for her with his suitcase open where documents were visible as well as his Hawaiian shirt and khakis pants. He was one cheeky fox. With gentle folding, she put her previous attire in the suitcase and stood tall in glamorous fulfillment.

"After you, Mr. Wilde."

"My pleasure, Miss Hopps."

* * *

They had entered one of Downtown's skyscrapers, a skyscraper so shiny that Judy almost collided with a pole from the trance she had put herself in. The area was so clean, the sidewalks were filled with mammals in expensive suits, the roads weren't cramped and the cars that passed by were of prices and appearances that Judy couldn't have even imagined. The place's architecture was very creative as well as odd, the shapes being those of bent curves, hard edges and spiraling tops that weren't making the residence less attractive, it actually made it way more eye-grabbing as well as invigorating.

And now they were in one of those windowed-giants, more specifically inside an elevator with a strictly-dressed red panda that was almost as tall as Judy but he wasn't managing to reach her nose, yet the mammal held quite some authority in the way he behaved himself.

Nick, with his ability to sway mammals into doing what he wanted, managed to persuade the staff to grant him a tour of one of the rooms on the top floors, a free tour at that. Judy was so excited to be able to see a part of Zootopia from above, a sight she probably wouldn't forget until her last breath. The excitement managed to overpower her self-restrain and her leg began thumping the ground, an instinctive reaction she had when her heart would go up a pace, and she instantly felt Nick's paw on her shoulder, a surprise that got her to look at him with some dread and to gulp but when he smiled at her, comfortable warmth managed to spread itself on the spot he was holding her.

But when he took a step closer and held her firmly, that managed to bring the composure back and her to behave herself professionally, at least that was what Nick had told her to do before starting their hustle. The red panda seemed disinterested and when the door dinged, he exited and awaited them outside but Nick didn't lead her on, he frowned and stood in the same spot which confused Judy a lot.

"These aren't the VIP rooms," Nick stated what seemed to be obvious to the red panda.

"No, they are for business partners only," the panda clarified and stood tall outside without even moving a claw.

"We want to check them out, hence is why we came here." He was pushing his luck and it was obvious to her ears and eyes but why was he doing that and what was in those special rooms? Couldn't they just check the normal ones, it didn't matter to her because what she craved for was to see the gorgeous sight below and her temper was thinning with every passing moment, yet she was hiding it well, at least for now.

"You two aren't business partners. We cannot allow you to do so, gentlemammals," the panda put his foot on the ground and Judy did not have a clue how Nick would be able to crack through that thick steel wall. But that was Nick Wilde after all, he was too crafty for his own good.

"I see… I and my associate did have in mind to make business with this fine…"-Nick looked around the elevator-" _establishment_ … But if you are not to take us seriously, how could we? Right, Miss Hopps?" he aimed the question at her and she felt incredibly uneasy because she didn't know what to do and more importantly what to say that wouldn't blow their cover for the real reason they were there.

She just had to say what was up to mind, as Nick had told her, just improvise. "Meticulously said, Mr. Wilde. If we are being taken for jugglers in suits than it would be beneficial for both of us not to waste our time and just go to another corporation which would appreciate us for the mammals we undeniably are," she finished with confidence and was surprised by herself because it just flowed out of her mouth and she didn't know how that had happened.

It was just like the time at the Jumbo-pop when she crafted some violations out of the blue as to get the elephant bully intimidated which was a success, a success she was sure to follow in here because the smirk she could see, repressed on Nick's snarky face, told her volumes of how successful her words were as the panda now stood with widely opened eyes and slightly restless soles on which he was moving his weight.

"It is decided then. Take us do—" Nick tried to finish but was interjected by the panicked voice of the formal mammal.

"Gentlemammals!" the panda exclaimed and dashed towards them. "There is no need for that. We value our partners and future associates!"-Judy was sure it had worked now and that got her to almost smirk in satisfaction-"I can grant you access to one of the VIP rooms so you could make your decision. Does that sound good to you both?" he asked with harder breaths while his head moved from Nick to Judy in a desperate attempt to get a positive confirmation.

"I don't know… I am feeling a bit insulted from the welcoming I have received…" Nick began and his sarcasm was just drowning her ears but she was quick to catch up as she knew that it was her role to be the counterpart where the deal would be sealed.

"He wasn't trying to be rude, Mr. Wilde. He was just following protocol. Right Mr…?"

"Mr. Huang, sir." Nick instantly glared at the mammal while she didn't understand why he was behaving as such but then the panda gasped lightly and stuttered, "S-sorry, m-ma'am… It's Huang, ma'am."

A scoff came from her side and she wanted to hit him in the ribs for making the mammal so terrified of simple mistakes that really didn't matter to her yet they needed to show a high standard which they were doing pretty proficiently. "Lead us to the room, Mr. Huang. Time is money," Judy concluded with a dead-serious tone and saw Nick's attempts to stifle his laughter which got her to make a silly face in turn as well. It was a good thing that the red panda was too mortified to look at them or else everything would've went to hell.

They arrived at the last floor and exited the elevator. The floor in the corridor was made from white tiles and a mosaic in the shapes of clouds in the middle of the floor itself. The walls had a lot of edges and were from white marble while the ceiling had some sort of glass that was being illuminated by light above. There were silverfish chandeliers on each side of the walls which were shinning bright light into the enclosed yet spacious space in which the red panda stepped in and motioned to them to follow.

After some walking and her marveling the eye-melting surroundings, they stopped near an oaken door with delicate flower ornaments. The red panda put his card on the code lock and it beeped after which he entered a long code and the door unlocked with a click. He was just about to open it for them to enter when Nick intervened, "Give us 10 minutes of privacy."

The mammal in front of them stood in silence for some moments until he spoke up without a drop of confidence, "I'm supposed to sh—"

"Is that a problem I hear?" Nick took a side step closer to the unconfident mammal and angled his meaty ear at him. Judy could see that he was being a mean bully but it was necessary, yet he didn't need to be so rough.

"No-no… take all the time you need, gentlemammals…" the panda surrendered and moved away from the door after which Nick widely opened the wooden barrier and motioned with his paw to Judy as to enter which she did with a small scowl on her face that didn't go unnoticed by the red tod.

As they entered into the spacious room, instead of being in awe she turned to look at Nick in anger and when the door clicked shut, she elbowed his stomach without using much force but winding him down, nevertheless. "Why did you have to intimidate him so much!" she hissed in discontent at his behavior.

Nick grinned in response and slapped his tongue inside his mouth. "Meticulously? Really? What does that even mean, Fluff?!" he asked through laughter and the change of topic and jovial attitude managed to steer the issue away which was a problem yet she just let it go and smiled.

"In simple words, it means accurately," was her answer that carried a sort of tone of accomplishment.

"Jugglers in suits? How did you even come up with that one? Hah!" he chuckled and almost ruffled the fur on her head but stopped himself as he seemed to have realized where they were and decided to just scratch the underside of her muzzle to which she closed her eyes and pushed herself against his pampering claws and was to almost purr if the act of affection hadn't ended to which she shook her head and tried to collect herself. They were starting to get closer to each other again and it was him who did the acts of intimacy. As she always had said _'actions spoke louder than words'_ , yet those few words needed to be spoken at some time. She wouldn't forget.

Separated from her thoughts and fantasies, she entered the real world and remembered why they were there, a memory that got her feet restless as well as fingers and she wanted the explore the whole place because just the walls near the door were of a light-grey color, just like her suit, while a purely-white baseboard snaked around the base of the walls and around the doorframe itself with ornaments of roots embedded in the wood itself.

When she turned around to see the room, she couldn't force herself to blink because her eyes darted at every direction possible, the room was so spacious, it was so pristine and filled with expensive furniture, furniture like red sofas, cushioned goldish armchairs, more silverish chandeliers, an opened and spotless fireplace, and so much more details that were too much for her to process in one go. Extravagant was a weak word, vibrant couldn't be enough as well but what she was most interested in was what was behind the bluish curtains where the windows were, that was what she thirsted for to see.

"Come on, Nick!" she almost shouted as she grabbed his paw and pulled him towards the view of the day, and the floor tiles which were of different shades of white-brown somehow were warm to her feet but her mind wanted to see something else, to experience that view from a place she never thought she'd be at.

The insanely energy-pumped bunny got to the silky curtains and instantly pulled them away from her way while the reynard on her side chuckled in amusement while not moving his eyes away from her, seemingly more interested in her reactions rather than the view that was to come.

And oh did the sight come to life. The transparent windows were spotless and big as if they were an actual wall that separated the room from outside. The sky was clear and there wasn't any fog so the visibility was as far as the eye could see. The grey bunny was paralyzed so hard that her mouth hanged open with drool almost falling as she tried to go over everything but it was so hard for her because there was just too much to see. That was when she felt a gentle finger to push her chin up which got her to look at the initiator in daze, while she unknowingly squeezed his paw, and there was him, smirking madly but as if he was fulfilled. Why was he looking at her like that and why wasn't he going over the sights… She could ask later…

What first grabbed her lilacs was Tundratown as it was so white and shiny because of the sun's reflective rays. Its tall ice buildings were so dazzling, so magnificent and strange at the same time. The forests covered in purity were vast and some part of the high mountain range was visible but not enough for her to see over them because they were way higher than Downtown and the skyscraper itself.

There were some giant icebergs at the sea as well as some pretty big ships which were at the ant-looking docks but strangely enough, it was all visible just like the masses of snow that were being blown out of the tall walls surrounding the district.

Then came the sandy-textured Sahara Square where in the distance was the colorful giant palm tree which she remembered from reading about the city, known as the Palm Hotel. There were brownish and golden dunes and canyons as well as miniature houses but her eyes moved to the old town near the wall where she remembered having experienced the first murder of a mammal in her life as well as the false investigation that followed after in which she had been so nervous and angry.

The memory made some gloom enter her body but she tried to chase it away by feeding herself more images on magnificence by moving her eyes at the river and waterfalls that were close to the skyscraper they were at, a river that visibly snaked down through Downtown and between Sahara Square and Savanna Central, splitting in two at some point and at the end, joining the sea where she could see a small island with heavy black smoke coming from behind it.

That was Happytown, a sight that got her to frown because the memories from there were nothing but miserable and discouraging. Why wasn't anything being done about the condition of that place? It just needed order. But how could one bring order when there was so much corruption…

She wasn't registering that she was still holding onto Nick's paw and was squeezing it more than necessary because of the frustration in her blood. "What is it, Carrots?" he asked and plucked her out of her thoughts as she looked at his worried eyes and after a moment, she rubbed her head into her shoulder with downcast eyes.

"It's Happytown… That's where I got knocked out before you came at my place…" she told him and felt quite worrisome for some reason but then, then she felt warmth to close the distance to her and the paw that she had been holding to grab the other side of her shoulder which got her to look up and see the compassionate smile of Nick who rubbed her shoulder and that actually made her more comfortable with herself.

"Can you find the box you used to live in?" he asked in a teasing manner that got one of her eyebrows up for a second but as she understood his request, a giggle escaped her lips and she searched dynamically for the Pangolin flat but it was hard because all of the buildings were so small, only the ZPD and Central Train station were ones she recognized but as she followed her memory of maps, she pointed at certain direction where a bit of some old-fashioned tenements were, just like the one she was in.

"Smart bunny," he concluded and she smiled widely even if the choice wasn't very confident on her part. She could see the vast endless sea that spread as far as the eye could see, while glistering under the wide-yellowish smile of the sun. There was the Bunnyburrow Express bridge that connected Zootopia with the mainland with a visible train that was heading towards her home place which's shore had quite some harbors with a lot of boats of different sizes, shapes and uses; industrial buildings and wide forests. The fields behind those masses of green were barely visible, and far-far away, the mountains of Bunnyburrow could be faintly seen.

An idea sprung into her head and she tried to find the airfield by searching the Meadowlands but the only thing she could see was forests, hills, fields and mountains. It was hard to find something she was only at several times even if she had tried to remember her surroundings during their trips with the bus. The giant bridge that connected the Meadowlands with Zootopia was down there with a very big and luxurious yacht just going underneath it.

The road to the outside world after that said bridge was visible as well but at some point after following its path it couldn't be seen any more because the terrain was uneven and filled with the healthy-green crowns of the old trees that were probably even older than her grandfather.

Having seen most and lingering on the exquisite sights for some longer moments, she sighed dreamily and turned her head towards the other room which's door was open and there could be seen quite the bed.

"Come on, Slick! Let's check the bedroom!" she grabbed his cupping paw that was still on her shoulder and pulled him towards the definitely appealing room.

"W-what? Why the bedroom! Carrots— ouch— you're pulling my fur!"

* * *

They had checked a few more scrapers, one even with a view towards the Rainforest District where Judy wasn't able to see anything else than the obscuring tops of the old trees as well as rain clouds that were very strangely forming in front of her very eyes, yet it was a sight not to be missed as the rest of the Meadowlands were visible with more rocky mountains in the far-far end of the horizon.

Nick had acted again like a jerk with the mammals who were responsible to show them their rooms which they were _supposed_ to rent, eventually, but one of those mammals just showed them the door and it was one of their joint failed attempts. Nevertheless, it had been a very fun experience for her but the strange thing about all of it was that Nick hadn't really gone through the details and sights as she had caught him multiple times to be looking at her. Maybe he was more interested in her reactions? If that was so, she didn't know how to react to that as it had made her feel somewhat flattered and outright special.

But then, then he had led her towards the waterfalls she had first seen, where massive turbines were located as to generate electricity for the city and they were now just behind a small fence that had a sign _'ENTERING PROHIBITED!'_. Why were they there as they had already seen it? Why was… Clanking and rustling got her attention and she saw Nick on the other side of the fence which got her to gasp and close the distance between the chain links and his location.

"Nick! Get out of there before someone sees you!" she tried to make him listen to her but he only moved his head to the side so one of his eyes were visible and then came his grin.

"Come on, Carrots. There is something I want to show you," he just said and began walking towards the waterfall while treading on the narrow rocky edge.

"Nick!" she hissed but he wasn't listening and because she didn't want to remain alone or to let him get his tail in trouble when she could've done something about it, she began climbing the metal construct after some contemplations of hesitation she was on the other side. Careful as to not fall in the river next to her, she trekked in the fox's steps until she managed to close the distance as he had stopped just before the rumbling waterfall that foamed the water underneath. What did he want to exactly show her?

She looked around as to be sure that nobody could see them and then tugged his tail to which he turned to look at her in amusement and winked. And just like that, in a single motion, he entered through the thick stream of the falling water and disappeared from sight as if the white liquid ate him whole.

"Hey!" she shouted and tried to follow him but stopped just before the foamy dampness behind which she couldn't see anything. That fox was something else, he just loved doing things without telling her or explaining, something that if it wasn't too serious she was greatly adoring but not the other way around. Again, he had left her in a position where she didn't know what to do and now was left to her own decisions, a bit forced by his side by leaving her alone like that. Was she going to fall in water if she stepped into the unknown, was there solid ground?

"Dumb-dumb fox!" she muttered and with a heavy inhale, she charged through the stream and felt the wetness to finds its way through her neck and suit which she didn't want to get soaked but the fox had somehow forced her to do so. Just as she was to stop, something or rather someone grabbed her and pulled her out of her charge to which she looked up and saw a slightly-wet vulpine that was tittering like crazy.

"Stop with these teasing jokes!" she tried to be angry with him and to hit him in the stomach but the closeness managed to do something else and she actually felt hotness under her clothes so much that she looked away and pulled out of his wet embrace.

"Come on, just a bit further," was his response as he began moving but this time he put his paw on the small of her back and pushed lightly as to get her in motion.

"We aren't supposed to be here…" Judy tried yet again even if a part of her was begging her to shut her mouth and enjoy this incredible moment of privacy with the mammal she wanted to be close to. The waterfall behind them was rumbling and they seemed to be entering some sort of a small cave which had rough edges and was from black and blue rock.

"Nope. But you'll like it. I promise," he said slickly and tilted his head slightly at her which made her cheeks to burn a bit because the reduced light, soothing sound behind their backs which was starting to become weaker and weaker, were just working wonders on her mind and body.

They neared what looked like an end of the cave where there was a small pond with sky-blue light underneath while the water was visibly evaporating and brushing against her damp fur. That was when she heard it. "We need to undress."

With widened eyes, she moved her head at the red vulpine in mortification and stared at him for some moments while he removed his coat. "W-w-what?"

Without even looking back, he explained, "The place is on the other side. We need to swim to it." His coat was fully off and he opened the suitcase in which he put in neatly but she couldn't respond and just stood like a mammal with disability while her nose twitched from her agitated state of mind. She couldn't undress herself, that would expose too much fur and he would see her fully, almost fully! It looked like some sort of blocking mechanism in her and even if she had played with herself while watching him, she couldn't do it if it was known, it was just different and shyness was dominant in that other variant of exposure.

She could at least take the coat off and swim with the rest, yes, that would work even if she didn't want to ruin them, it was better than removing them entirely. The two buttons fell easily and the softly-grey fabric fell off her body which she put in that black suitcase of his with her tie following suit shortly after but when she rose to full height, the red fox had just removed his white shirt and the blue light illuminated his back to her eyes which got her to groan with tight lips and look away as she scratched her paws with her short claws.

"Come on, Fluff. These clothes won't go off themselves," he teased but she didn't even reply to which the shuffling of fabric ceased and after a few seconds, wet slaps of paws hitting rock stopped just before her but she was still looking at her feet.

She saw him, from the corner of her eyes, to take a knee before her and that was when she felt his paw around her neck, paw that got her to look at him at last with a heart that was just beating faster and faster. "What's wrong?" Seeing him again like this got her to bite her lip and try to move her gaze away but she was in his hold and just couldn't and that was making her incredibly restless because she was trapped and the only way was to be truthful but words couldn't exit her throat.

"Don't tell me you're embarrassed?" To his question, she gave him a single nod with a labored inhale which filled her nostrils with soothing musk. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's only me and you"-that was what was making her feel shy tho-" Look at me… anything scary you see?" he asked and pointed at himself to emphasize his point and she did just that but very slowly to which she saw the shades of red and cream to dance in the mix of blue. It was beautiful and entrancing while he was right but she still didn't want to.

"I'll stay here, you go... There is n—"

"Didn't you once tell me that there is nothing to fear but fear itself? Are you going against that?" Him repeating a moto she lived by managed to widen her eyes and freeze her nose because he was one-hundred percent right and she was acting childish. Why was she even trying to hide herself from the one mammal she actually wanted to be close to, why not give him more reasons to stay by her and accept her as something more. He wasn't being shy so why was she acting out of place.

With a hard hum, she began removing the buttons on her white shirt and heard a satisfied snap from Nick's muzzle after which he moved away from her and the shuffling of cloth resumed. Her blazing determination fell with each button down and her puffy fur on her chest now pushed out of the shirt as it was tight around her figure but she wasn't going to stop, there was nothing to fear but fear itself. She had to conquer her fear or it would conquer her.

Hesitantly but not stopping, she removed the slick white shirt and went close to Nick who had just removed his trousers and was now in his blue boxers with his trademark blueberries, a funny sight, a sight that was at least managing to stifle the burning excitement in her core, and she put the clothing in the suitcase with arms in front of her silver chest as to hide herself insctinvively, a move not unnoticed by the reynard on her side.

"Just relax," he added and she looked at him with a sad smile. If he could do it, she could as well. Therefor she removed the arms away from her chest with strain and reached for the button on her comfortable trousers. That made her heart to explode in a rhythm worse than the one before and she was getting impatient and just couldn't remove the tricky plastic button, something that added further into her frustration as she groaned and tried harder but it wasn't working.

Why wasn't it going off, why was it so hard to remove it and why were her paws shaking... what was wrong with her… Two paws lay on both sides of her shoulders and a purple nose got itself in front of her view which got her to look up and see an understanding Nick who was smiling sadly. The closeness got her nose to wiggle a few times but her paws stopped shaking but when he looked down at her, her cheeks reddened and she almost pushed him away if he hadn't began. "You've beaten a rhino and a bear… are some pants going to defeat you?" he teased lightly and she almost snorted as the agitation managed to stifle under the clever tongue of the fox before her.

In another attempt, followed by a deep breath, she grabbed the button and pushed it inwards, a push that managed to work and she pulled the zipper down next after which the trousers slid down her thighs and she managed to remove them with rapid breaths while in the presence of a curios fox who was eyeing her and she was actually liking the attention even if there was that ticklish feeling all around her skin and tightness in her desynchronized chest.

As she gave him an innocent look aimed at his predatory jades, he removed his paws and stood up but with a very enticing smirk while she tip-toed to the suitcase and put her clothing after which she grabbed her opposite arm and got to the edge of the rock where the small glowing pond was.

Even if she had her pure black trunks on, she somehow felt fully exposed to the predator behind her and that was plummeting her confidence because she didn't know what was going through his mind, was he enjoying it, was he feeling awkward? But his smirk had told her otherwise… Yet she was unsure and just as she was to dive under, she heard an ahem which got her to let her paws to fall to her hips and her to turn her head sideways with nervousness etched all around her body while her long and filled-with-blood ears rested behind her. She was so slim, yet not bony as her muscles were outlining her thin yet strong physique. There were some ruffled parts of her fur on her narrow shoulders and the backside of her not-so-thin upper thighs, and it was visible that her legs were highly trained because her rump was quite curvy from all the endless exercises she had gone through.

Her gray fur wasn't bland but uniquely eye-pulling, especially on her back while the silver underside of her slightly restless tail glowed just like her cheeks which visibly were reddened by the attention she was receiving as well as position she was in. The reynard was outright leering at her and his tail was wagging a lot behind him. That brought her confidence up but what managed to shock her were his words, "You are… Gorgeous," and that was when he licked his lips and growled playfully. That was what she needed, that compliment boosted her belief in herself and got her to make a small smile on the corner of her lips. Things were going better than expected and she was feeling more and more comfortable by the second.

She could say the same for him, she wanted to say it because he was even more tempting than when she had seen him in his home. That creamy chest, those sharp teeth, those long claws, that long tail… But her trance was broken by his next addition. "Hold your breath," he said seriously with his smirk turning into a naughty grin and before she could react, he sprinted at her.

"W-wa—" His body collided with hers as he pulled her from the side and into the warm water where panic spread itself through her system and got her to kick and wave with paws and feet as the only thing she could see were bubbles and stinging sensation in her eyes. That was when two tough paws got under her arms and pulled her up with her head sticking out of the water as she gasped for air and coughed a few times.

Regaining her focus, she could feel that the two paws were still holding her steady while waves underneath went through her and then came the snickering from behind which got her to frown and swish instantly to look at the childish tod who immediately got splashed with warm water but instead of backing off he just stared at her with sultry eyes. "You must've been pretty popular with the vixens, doofus," she jabbed and exposed her buck teeth in a mocking manner.

"Likewise, Fluff," he retorted with a gentle growl and because of the teasing mood he had gotten her to, she pulled out her tongue and squirmed out of his grasp, submerging herself underneath and starting to swim towards the light on the other side. With strong pushes and pulls, she managed to get there before the silly fox and was in awe after she emerged from the steamy liquid.

It was the ending of the cave where there was a small shore on the other end and a crack on the top from where light was pouring in and giving her the ability to see the long and whitish stalactites which had different lengths but similar pointy forms. The cave itself was illuminated in blue and looked so magnificent, so incredible, so breathtaking.

She felt movement underneath her floating ears behind her but decided against ruining his attempt of scaring her because she was curious of what he would come up with even if there were some ideas that got her to push her thighs together. And indeed, he did something actually unexpected as his teeth grabbed one of her floppy ears and moved through as if he was munching on them but the only thing that came out of her mouth was laughter because it was tickling her but her body flushed in excitement and was pushing a certain idea forward in her brain, a very normal and instinctive one.

As she paddled herself so she could meet his jades, he released the light hold and waited. "Quit biting my ears, Slick! Do you love them so much?" she teased but the words she used managed to force her heart to go up a notch yet she remained confident from the outside as he smirked and prepared himself to answer.

" _Meticulously_ said, Miss Hopps. How can _one_ not bite those long and lovely ears of yours," he quipped mockingly, using her word of choice back when they were doing the hustle and even if he was joking, he did really like those ears of hers. He wouldn't have gone and tasted them in the den if he didn't and that memory got her energetic, it made her daring yet again, it made her craving.

"Exactly! Then _one_ wouldn't bite them, doofus!" she giggled and splashed him in the muzzle to which he propelled himself forward and they began fighting with each other under the warm water; lively light; and enjoyable company of theirs.

They played around the steamy waters for some time, pulling, splashing, jumping and teasing until exhaustion kicked in with the decision being made to rest on the small shore, and now both were laying close to each other and just staring at the cracks in the ceiling, both panting with smiles on their faces while the only sounds were those of their breaths and the drops of water that fell from the walls and ceiling back to where they had tried to escape from.

Judy was feeling complete, it was such a wonderful exhilarating sensation which was just jolting her with fuel-enriched energy. "Won't someone steal our clothes?"

"Uhm? Not many know about this place… I found it by accident when I was… let's say that a hustle went bad and I had to leg it." That made her to giggle and scoop closer to him so now they were touching each other's fur, and because she was feeling extremely comfortable being near him, her tongue untied and just wanted to talk about the recent event.

"Nick… How did you feel when… when you were trying to make me hate you?" was her question that got the vulpine to stop breathing for a moment and get him to squirm lightly probably from discomfort about the topic.

"Lower than dirt… I… I still feel like that and I hate myself for what've done to you and others…" he said with a groan and a light whimper that she caught with her sensitive ears and as she was seeing that the topic was ruining the mood and turning it gloomy, she rolled slightly towards him and grabbed the fur on his chest and lay her head on his shoulder as she grazed his body with her short claws.

"I don't hate you… because I know... you are not who you're trying to seem to be, Nick. You've shown me…" she whispered and saw his ears to fall down and him to move his head the other side while his body became slightly restless but he didn't try to scurry away and that was when she pushed herself further into him.

"You've got to stop feeling guilty, it's not making things better… I forgave you… stop trying to punish yourself. I can see it when you try to hide your true feelings and I know…" she dug in very vigorously and that made the vulpine's breath hard as if he was fighting the urge to respond while his claws brushed the rock and scratched it quietly. But he was remaining quiet and wasn't responding, it was something rare to make the clever tod speechless and it was as if he was trying to find a retort to what she had said but in his inability to find one his frustrations were leaking all over his body.

It didn't matter if he wasn't going to respond, he was listening and grasping fully what was being said, and she needed finish what was started. "Thank you, Nick… I needed this… I've been needing this for a long time…" she disclosed from the bottom of her heart and hugged him with her paw across his chest. She didn't expect a response but she didn't want one, him being close to her was enough and it was warming her whole being with blinding light and comfort.

But that was when she was surprised when he began with slightly cracking voice, "N-no… Thank y-you..." This was getting emotional and both seemed to be getting into the same puddle of feelings as Nick turned to match his gaze with hers and they just mooned into each other for some glistering moments until Nick exhaled sharply and pulled himself up and out of her embrace which worried her a lot but then he pushed her very slowly to lay her on her back and got over her with arms and legs on both sides of her head and hips.

He wasn't touching her but the closeness of his muzzle to hers was making her heart to explode and her belly to flutter while her breath was mashed as her eyes widened while her lips quivered in anticipation as well as puzzlement. They were both exposed and almost naked but she wasn't feeling the need to cover herself, it was as if they had shown each other that they had nothing to hide but their true feelings and she wanted nothing more than him to finally realize that and accept it. She wanted him to forgive himself and let the guilt go because keeping it so close to him wasn't doing anyone any good, it wasn't doing her any good.

"You don't know how grateful I am… for having the opportunity to have met you… I…"-his lips began quivering-"ehm… you…" he tried to finish from above but then his words became hard and his thoughts seemed to have broken down and he just stuttered while she was feeling the urge to make the next move, to just grab his head and pull him into the last step but she was paralyzed to the last cell.

"Nick…" was her quiet mumble and then she saw burning affection in his emeralds. Was he going to do it? Was it to happen?

Was it happening?

She couldn't be sure.

Nothing was sure in this world of variables.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

\- Great demotivation has dawned upon me and that is a major issue because I am not writing of late. I've found something else to strive for as well and that takes more of my thoughts unlike when I used to think more about my book. This ain't plotless, most has been thought about as in major critical moments but it's hard to get to them when… well when you have something else in your mind. Content has been cut and will be because things have unexpectedly crashed through the plans laid before. Shait… I am not saying this is it, no-no. This will be finished and I will finish it even if it takes a whole year. It will have quality and won't be up to everyone's tastes. I had way more planned about it but as I want to finish it, content will be cut, the less interesting one.

\- My idea is to finish this which would grant me more experience over writing after which I would dive into my own original book. Yes, I could do it now but I'll pass, more than 1 project is going to be so fucking irritatingly-annoying. I hope you enjoy this content and thank you for the support as well as your time. I may not have a large following or interest in this story but that doesn't really bring me down. That small group of people that have expressed their interest, you know full well who you are, have been of enormous boost to my drive because I ain't a fuckin' robot. Stay tuned, next chapter is going to be fun as a fire doesn't just die out as the embers remain.

\- **Music while writing:** _Wolfgang Lohr & Balduin & feat. Sebastian Daws - Whoopsy Daisy (Club Mix)_

\- **Latest edit:**

\- **Tumblr:** _markovas_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_


	26. Confessions

**Confessions**

* * *

The steamy gasified liquid divided itself from the crystal-clear pond of warmth and tried to escape from the enclosed space through the cracks in the ceiling from where rays of hope and vision were shouldering through and illuminating the insides of the cave where two wet mammals were very close to each other, one on top, the other underneath, both almost touching their muzzles and breathing hard because of the intimacy they were in between as well as steam that was all around, an intimacy that was visibly spreading warmth in both their bodies as the reynard was trying not to pant, while the grey doe's chest was moving too fast for it to be considered healthy.

But none were moving nor saying anything, just mooning into each other without blinking while that same warmth-losing steam was almost at the gates of freedom, at the end of its journey of salvation but in its path came a sharp and extended piece of earth's past-crust and it hugged its surface, trapping itself and beginning its journey down from hence it had escaped.

Judy's chest was feeling tight, her legs even more so because above her stood a predator, a fox who had her in his paws, having the abilities to do whatever he wanted with her, which may have terrified her in the past but now, now it was making her exhilarated, it was as if her blood was dancing inside her veins. She could sense their mingled scents of arousal and it was so tasty and sweet… She wanted to touch him, to lick him, to bite him… She wanted him to do the same, to feel her, to kiss her, to hug her, to take her… But he wasn't doing any of that even if the affection was there in his relaxed yet nervous eyes.

Why was he holding back?! After all the signals she had given and was giving him, after she had forgiven him from the bottom of her heart, being unable to lie as it would've consumed her whole if she ever did. That made her slightly irritated, it managed to anger her a bit and her body tensed for a moment as if the paralyzation that was reigning over her was starting to fade and that got her nose to twitch which got the red tod to lick the rim of his lips. Maybe he was teasing her? He was that kind of a mammal after all, a mammal that she wanted to pull to herself at that very moment.

A long exhale from Nick's part brushed the fur on her face and he lightly moved towards her with a small smile but then she saw something to fall on his now-wet nose which got him to stop his slow advance and look at his purple scent-detector for a moment. Her leg was getting restless and it was starting to act on its own while she was beginning to take control over herself. Fear, dread, and the thinning anticipation was starting do draw out of her, replaced by feverish want which she was going to express in just a matter of moments after her recollection.

Just as she was to grab one of his canines and shove him towards her, she saw his sultry gaze to fall down into that same one of guilt and his jades to glister under the soothing-blue light from above. His mouth opened but nothing came out, he looked at her in mortification, in sorrow and that crushed all her hunger, it made her want to understand what was wrong, what had just happened in that split second of visible revelations.

She opened her mouth to start speaking but then the unexpected happened in the form of wet fur grinding against wet fur as Nick pushed his muzzle on her chest and rested his head there as well as the rest of his body on hers while his paws grabbed the sides of her arms and gripped them in desperation. His nose was close to the side of her head and she could see that he was straining himself as his eyes were forced shut and lips were curling down sporadically as if he, as if he was trying to banish him emotions from emerging.

Her first reaction when she saw him burrow his head there was in the form of instant embarrassment that flushed her and brought up her libido but when she realized that he was hurting inside, it quickly died down and now she wanted nothing more but to be there for him, he had been there when she needed someone, when she needed him… Not using much strength, she managed to pull her arm from his loose hold and rested her paw on top of his muzzle which she caressed gently but no words were said, they weren't needed, they were unnecessary.

He was forcing himself too much, his body was a reflection of what he was hiding and he seemed to be breaking apart just in front of her, on her body and he didn't feel heavy at all, even if she knew that he was definitely heavier than her. She actually liked the feeling even if she was trapped under him, under a predator, under Nick… She knew it was a taboo to think that because he was a fox, a male, that he couldn't feel, that he didn't need comfort and affection, that he needed to be strong and show unrelenting strength. That was idiotic and her heart managed to shrink for a second because he trusted her enough to do this in front of her, but it actually made her smile in contradiction.

Her legs were spread and in between was his stomach and lower body, thus she pulled one of her legs up and began touching him with it while her other paw reached for his ear and her small claws began grazing its damply-cushy insides. That was when his sobs came and failures to stifle them but the vibrations were resonating through her chest and all around her body, tickling her skin and getting her to feel his discomfort as well. Then his emeralds opened slightly and she could see his gaze that was aimed elsewhere with moisture on the corner of his glistering jades. It was touching, it was intimate, it was saddening for her as well, thus she continued her loving acts of affection under his muzzle with each stroke making her feel a certain itch.

The decision visibly relaxed him and the sobs subsided yet he was reluctant to look at her but she didn't budge in, the silence prevailed and it was what he needed. Time, warmth, kindness and someone to talk to.

"It's so… so h-hard for me to understand y-you…" he began very lowly without looking at her but her ears had grabbed all those notes and had arranged them into sentences. "What do y-you even s-see in me?" he asked and moved his exhausted gaze to match hers.

It wasn't a hard question for her because when a mammal's intentions were real and pure, you didn't even had to think about it, words just flowed like water. "Those qualities that you try to hide all the time… Your gentleness… your jokes… your caring… your sense of reality… your soft fur and long tail…" she trailed off and awkwardly smiled at him because she had lost herself in her thoughts but she could see the desired effect because even if a tear dampened his fur under his eyes, a small smile tugged on his lips.

"Do y-you really want to h-hide yourself by being with me…" he asked with downcast eyes and nearly-cracking voice.

Now what he had just said made no sense to her brain and she was to just ask what the hell he was talking about when she accidently managed to understand its context. Why would he even think about that idea, she had never even thought about that, about hiding herself for being in such a relationship as if she would be ashamed. It would be exactly the opposite, she would be proud for managing to create such a bond, a bond that most would say was unnatural and disgusting but she had gone through such hard criticism before and so had he which gave them even more reasons to why they should do it.

"I won't. I don't care what others would say. I only care about your opinion," she disclosed and could feel his increased rhythm of his chest on her belly and that meant that she had managed to get to him yet again but he tried again to hide his emotions and that managed to severely irritate her. "Do not hide yourself from _me_!" she asserted and squirmed herself closer to his muzzle so now her head was just next to the side of his maw.

"Heh… I don't know if I can anymore …" he returned with a note of amusement and smiled slightly but then a frustrated frown came. "I know what you want… I know what I want…"-his mouth twitched in discontent-"but my consciousness isn't clear… I need to forgive myself first…"

When he said that, she quickly pulled his muzzle next to her silver cheek and rested her head onto the side of it which made his eyes to widen in shock. "Let me help you then," she smiled happily and wrapped her paws around his head as his muzzle rested on her shoulder and his reaction was instant as his paws moved up and pushed their way behind her head, pulling her into the intimate embrace further but he wasn't calm at all, something was bothering him greatly because he began shaking all of a sudden and his ears went flat against his skull.

"Calm down, Nick. It's just us here…" she tried to get him into rails but he wasn't listening and she could feel his dread as it was bringing a miserable cloud all around them. What was bothering him so much? Where was this coming from?

"I h-have to… no… I n-n-need to… I want t-t—… I want to tell you what a c-coward you're into…" he grieved in her hold and after some moments of silence, his voice found life yet again, "I h-had this friend… he was someone I knew since childhood… a fox like me… we w-were very close… he was the one who gave me that poster, hah…" was his chuckle that sounded very strained but he was still shaking even if it had a reduced intensity that was derived from her closeness to him.

A small smile then appeared but it was short-lived. "We wanted more money… I wanted more… I got us in a very good deal with some mammals I thought were trustworthy… It was all a setup… there was no deal… we were trapped…"-his upper canines were starting to push against her shoulder but she didn't complain-"They put a g-gun in my paws… told me to k-kill him… I c-couldn't do it… I could've k-killed them… m-m-maybe…"-she could see where this was going to end up and hugged him tighter as to show him that she was there as his shaking became unbearably disfigured.

"But I didn't because I c-couldn't! I was also afraid to die… I thought that maybe this was just a test but then… t-then…" His lips began curling with his hackles on his back rising while growls started rumbling in his throat, growls that were making her fur stand on end, and her heart to race as the voice in her head was screaming at her to run. His canines were pressuring her bone and it was starting to hurt but it was a small sacrifice to make as to get him to finally trust her fully. If she stopped him, there was a chance for him to just close off, and she wasn't going to do that, nothing was separating her from him, even her old tools of survival which at this moment were an obstruction. He would never do what that voice was saying, she was dead-sure.

"They s-shot him! T-they shot him in the h-head i-in front of me… then they pushed me—…. me… in front of him and… I watched his c-convulsing f-f-face…"-tears began falling through the gaps of his tightly-shut eyes-"I t-tried to close my e-eyes but I _couldn't_ … All I could see were his lifeless eyes s-staring at _me_ … his t-tongue out with broken t-teeth from the bullet… p-pieces of his s-skull on the ground… b-blood oozing from his h-head… so m-much b-blood… b-b-blood…" His words became whimpers and tight groans.

He was losing himself, she needed to pull him out of that well of misery. It had frozen her blood and the images she had conjured were disgusting. He had said it in such detail, like it had happened just yesterday which was not the case at all and losing a mammal you cared for was something she knew all too well. What more had he gone through... "Nick… stop… stop—"

"If I _never_ made that deal—" He tried to pull away and the pressure from his teeth subsided, leaving marks of where they had been but the skin wasn't broken, yet she wasn't going to let him push her away thus she tightened her hold and shook him.

"Nick! Nick!"

His eyes opened and glared at her with anger and fury and his claws dug into her but she knew that this was just a reflex of his emotions and even if there was this discomfort, there was this other feeling which she banished instantly because it was out of place and inappropriate at that exact moment. "Now he's rotting who knows where!"-the anger faded with the pressure of his claws disappearing and his expression turned into one of guilt yet again-" If o-o-only… i-if o-only…"

"I'm here... I'm here," she said soothingly and sunk her paws and claws further into his shaking head vigorously as whimpers began coming forth, his ability to form words now being crushed under the weight of his memories from the dark past. His whole body was trembling and she could only try to put herself in his position, yet she knew the pain... She hadn't seen it like he had but she had experienced it and those locked echoes of misery managed to creep up her spine and into her head which got her heart to squeeze and cling onto the broken tod on top of her who had poured his heart.

Him having disclosed something like this to her had managed to pull something similar from the depths of her repressed memories and now it was pushing itself in an attempt to get out her cramped throat, to be spoken and shared. She never did tell it to anyone, not to her mother, not to her sisters, not to a single soul alive. The only mammal that knew those dark and past segments was long gone, rotten and almost-forgotten. The realization got her eyes to sting and her control was wobbled with loss of it quickly following because she wasn't able to hold herself around the mood of grief and sadness, thus she joined in with hiccups and trembles from time to time.

They held each other for who knows how much time until both were exhausted enough to stop and reflect on what had just happened, the silence was only being disturbed by the lightly plopping water and the agitation-filled breaths of the bunny and fox who hadn't even moved a centimeter from each other from fear that the pit of despair would come back.

It had visibly drained both of them emotionally and Judy was collecting her courage to tell the crestfallen tod that was laying on her what made her who she was. It wasn't a topic she wanted to talk about but he had given her something precious and that got her to want to do the same, to return the trust and show him how much she cared for him like he did with her.

She released the exhausted hug at last and began moving her fingers through the fur on his head, a decision that was met with reddened jades aimed at her. She gave him a small smile and began, "Do you want to know why I really became a cop?"

His eyebrows furrowed together. "Didn't you already tell me?" She knew he would say that but as she shook her head in denial, Nick's expression turned curious and he got off of her as he pushed himself to his knees and moved to her side but that didn't make her feel better because it was as if now there was that vulnerability and fear from telling him, she needed to be close to him, to have his support, his body, thus she pulled herself and quickly moved in front of the sitting fox who was eyeing her with his tired eyes in confusion.

She looked at him slightly saddened and then aimed her lilacs at his bent legs that he was hugging but as he visibly wasn't understanding, she reached and pulled one of them after which she tip-toed in between and sat on his extended thigh, hugging his middle shortly after and pushing her head into his warmth. She didn't instantly receive what she wanted but he managed to catch on and embraced her in his paws as well as tail. That was what she needed, she felt safe.

"That isn't the real reason… Ughm… when I was 10… well I was 10 aand…" Her mind made her stop and yelled at her to shut the hell up to which she tried to burrow herself further into Nick's chest because she felt breathless and very agitated, it was so disturbingly painful for her, it was as if she was re-living that moment yet again, the moment where she failed because of misplaced trust and beliefs.

But Nick's firm hold, warmth and soothing scent managed to calm her panic down and as she took a deep and musky breath, she tried to continue without stopping, "I didn't really want to become an officer, I just kinda wanted it… but then something h-happened…" She could sense the past pain to poison her because her eyes as well as body, they felt heavy and stiff.

"I had a best friend… his name was Sam… he was a badger… He was such a great guy, such a good friend… We knew each other better than no one else…"-a small smile managed to creep on her face-"you know, I liked him… I kinda liked him a lot"-she giggled lightly into Nick as she had managed to distract herself with at least some good memories of that time-"maybe I was into predators all along, I really didn't see the difference and point back then… not that I cared… He had these black lines that went from his muzzle and eyes to the back of his neck… so cute…" Nick chuckled but didn't say anything even as she knew that this was a golden opportunity for him to tease her, it meant that he was listening with undivided attention.

But as she kept that vibrant smile, the next part brought sadness and despondency and that got her to squeeze her hug further because she needed all the help Nick could give her for what was to come. "He had… he had problems at home… like he would sometimes come meet me with bruises on his eyes and neck… I wanted to help, I knew that his mother was abusing him because he had told me… reluctantly… His father had died when he was a small kit and the only mammal he had was his mother… and me…" Judy grit her teeth because she felt a lot of irritation inside of her only from mentioning that façade of a parent.

"He was 2 years bigger than me and I thought that he could deal with that himself… I didn't want to agree with myself but I did and things remained quiet for a bit… Until one day he came with a broken arm and a closed eye! His face had deep cuts and he looked miserable!" Judy yelled and began shivering in anger but the fox remained at her side, he was there and she could feel his paws soothing the fur on her drooped ears while he rocked her lightly from side to side with himself.

"I had had it! Mammals had to know about this. I h-had to do something… I couldn't let the mammal that was closest to me to go through such pain… I couldn't, you must understand!" she tried to pull out of his grasp because she was feeling pressured even if Nick hadn't peeled a word, she felt as if she was being judged from the intoxicating dread inside of her.

"I understand, Judy. I do…" he reassured and held her, not letting her get out of the safe space she had put herself in and that managed to calm her nose at least a bit and because no attack came at her direction, her psychological insanity repaired itself and she was able to continue without snapping.

"I thought about it and because I believed in the police, I called them right after we parted ways with Sam. But I d-didn't tell him… I had to tell h-him… W-why didn't I tell h-him…"-Judy's eyes began trembling and she could sense that her stability was beginning to go to hell but she needed to finish, she had to let go-"Jennie awoke me d-during the n-night… s-she told me that t-there was a fire at S-Sam's house…" Her heartbeat was increasing and her breaths were as if they were devoid of oxygen.

"The p-place wasn't f-far… my dad gathered some of my older brothers and they went to help… they didn't want to take m-me… But I had to!" Just as quickly as her voice raised, it fell. "But I shouldn't h-have… W-when I got there, it w-was a blazing i-inferno… it was h-h-horrible, Nick…"-her tears broke through and she wanted it to end, she hated this, it was eating her up, it was traumatizing and viciously destabilizing-"I c-couldn't b-believe what I was s-seeing… I k-knew that I h-had done t-that… I-I h-had done that… I r-ran like n-never before… I needed to f-find h-him but one of the f-firefighters saw me and g-grabbed me… I was so d-desperate and c-confused."

What was to come next pushed her into shock and she tried to get away from Nick, but this time, this time she was using all her strength which audibly strained the reynard but he was keeping her glued to him. She needed to finish what was started even if the images ingrained in her mind were so clear and disgusting that they were managing to push her instincts on overdrive. These memories weren't locked for no apparent reason, they were ones that she had tried to forget but never exactly achieved success in doing so.

"I thought that m-maybe he had escaped. That h-he was _o-okay_ … But then… t-then I saw 2 tarps… with this a-awful and sharp s-s-smell. "Her small claws dug deep into him from sorrow and he even winced but remained quiet. " I h-had to know… I n-needed to k-know…"

Nick gulped hard and tried to make her stop, "Judy you don't have to g—"

She had to finish, the weight had to be cut if she was to become a better mammal, there was no need for her to carry such a burden alone anymore. "I managed to get to the t-t-tarps… The smell! N-Nick… it was the smell of d-death—wi… the smell of b-b-burnt f-f-flesh…"-her leg began trying to thump while her body trembled in anxiety and anguish-"B-but I had to k-k-know… u-under the t-t-tarps…"-her voice was weak and cracking now but she didn't stop-"t-there he laid, b-black like c-c-coal… No f-fur, no e-eyes, just b-burnt flesh… b-broken b-body, N-Nick! He was _D-DEAD_ and **I** WAS R-RESPONSIBLE!" she yelled into his fur which muffled her scream while tears streamed down her cheeks and onto his body as well.

She didn't go on immediately as she tried to regain some composure before continuing but now her voice was filled with something else, it sounded like apathy yet it had some attachment to what was being said but the stuttering, it was gone as if hatred had steeled her nerves. "I found that after his mother was confronted by the sheriff, she had killed Sam, burnt the house and taken her own life." She felt a shiver run through Nick's body but didn't pay it not mind.

"I get it, she was insane… she took my best friend from me but things didn't sit right with me. What had that sheriff said to make her do such a thing? I tried to find information about him but because of my age, I wasn't able to get much. One of my older brothers managed to get police reports on him. I found ones where it was so obvious he had overstepped his rights but not enough to get him convicted yet I knew that there was something more to it… corruption… But who was I? Just a young stupid bunny. I couldn't do anything and so I decided to let it go and just go on with my life."

"After a week, I accidently stumbled on a newspaper where it was written that that same sheriff was trialed for blackmailing several families in Bunnyburrow, at least from the evidence they had seemed to have found out. I realized immediately what had happened. He had threatened Sam's mother, he had tried to blackmail her. That's why she killed her son and herself. I am sure, Nick! I am sure! I'm telling you, you've got to believe me!" To her request for desperate confirmation, he hummed and began grazing her ears with his claws which managed to relax her a bit.

She sighed into him sadly and rubbed her muzzle into his chest. "That was when I decided that I was going to do something about all this injustice, corruption and misery. I was going to become a police officer and make a change so no one else had to die and suffer. I wanted to be the strong paw that guided the weak, to prevent such things from ever happening again. That's why I couldn't keep my head down with Duke and Thane. I would've been mocking the memory of Sam if I did, I would've been mocking myself. I couldn't…"

Her mind became a hole filled with regrets and failures because even when she didn't want to mock her deceased friend's memory, her failure was almost the same as doing it indirectly. It repulsed her and she groaned in irritation. "But what does it matter… I am no one now… I failed him… I failed myself a—"

"You survived," Nick interjected and that got her to stop as the words pierced her thinking. "You can still do what you wanted to. Nothing's stopping you."

His words' meaning was quickly caught on and she moved her head up to meet his compassionate eyes. "That's against the law, Nick. I cannot!"

"Keep lying to yourself. You'll see. Nothing's black and white." She didn't want to argue because there was no point in doing so because she knew his position and she knew hers. The issue was that something cracked inside her head as if a seed was planted because now she was wondering if she had really lost the ability to do what she had promised herself. Had she? What if she became the paw of righteousness even if she broke the law that way. Did it really matter anymore? Were the lives of mammals more important than her hardheaded outlooks? Those waters were too deep to dive into yet, she had to distract herself.

Telling him why she had pursued the goal of becoming an officer managed to bring the enormous weight off her chest and she felt lighter even if the images were making her throat to feel the acid from her stomach. It was in the past and now she had shared this burden with someone she trusted and cared for a lot, it made her feel better and because of the tight embrace, there wasn't that loneliness that she was with most of the time during her life. Yes, she may have had sisters and brothers but this was different, it was more intimate than that, it was new and insanely melting.

She lightly pushed against him and because she wasn't using much strength the tod got the signal and let her go but without removing his paws from her as he held her on the sides of her arms. She wanted to change topic because the past was the past, what mattered was the present. "What about… umm"-warmth managed to spread from the core of her heart and towards her silver cheeks in the form of a heated blush-"you know… about us?" she asked innocently as well as anxiously and smiled awkwardly at the confused reynard after which she looked away in embarrassment for bringing the topic up but felt a claw under her chin that pushed her head gently so she could meet his calm and collected jades that were filled with tenderness.

"You really want it, do you?" to his question she smiled and nodded to which she received a long exhale and a smile almost as vibrant as hers. "Sure, Fluff. But don't expect me to be a grea—" He didn't have time to finish or react as a crazily-excited bunny leaped at him and toppled him to the warm rocky-ground but before he could do anything, Judy bumped her nose into his and tried to make contact with his moist lips but she had failed because of the differences between them which filled her with more embarrassment and extreme humiliation.

She cursed at herself for failing at doing such a simple task but she wasn't one to quit yet and before he could try to stop her his breath was stolen when a pair of bunny lips glued themselves to his in a long and loving kiss that melted her brain and her ears stood tall in turn while her paws roamed over his chest and neck and after the kiss was finally broken, it left a string of saliva and a lot of craving in between both mammals.

She wanted to hear those words for so long and when she did, all thoughts about self-control were gone and she wanted nothing more but to take that taste, to connect with him in another way and the kiss had been blissful, it had warmed her so much that she was panting in excitement and because both of them were almost-naked, other thoughts raced through her mind and she dropped herself on him and grinded herself towards his mouth while pushing his damply-disgruntled fur and furrowing it that way, as she wanted again to steal some of his delightful breath and essence.

He wasn't pushing her away but at the same time was passive about it and that was extremely strange because it was as if she had subdued the dangerous predator and submitted him to her will, which she knew was definitely not the case but now what mattered was that he had accepted her affection and had agreed to progress the relationship. She got just mere centimeters in front his mouth and gazed into his predatory emeralds which were calm and restrained yet there was visible excitement which he was letting to manifest in the form of a small satisfied smile and slightly closed eyes.

She put a paw under his muzzle and this time she slowly pushed her mouth into his but in her drunken state of thrill, she pulled out her tongue and tried to enter him. Surprisingly she managed to get through but as she knew, her small blood-filled pink sponge was only managing to enter a bit of his long muzzle but in between his sharp teeth, she reached for what she was searching for with closed eyes. It was his long and fleshy tongue that didn't remain silent and pushed gently against hers, a decision that got her to giggle into the smooch that ploppedand pull out but not before biting his lip sultrily and baring her teeth at him with a very cute growl that got out her throat.

Someone had once told her to expect the unexpected and that someone was too damn right as the fox that seemed submissive and calm was now outright looking at her with impatience and she heard something flap onto the ground with a constant rhythm. When she looked at the transgressor, she saw his wagging tail and it was then when she knew that the mistake was made but it was too late, the force of another pushed against her and she fell off the tense fox, close to the end of the small shore, and shortly after, a passionate reynard got over her and grabbed the side of her middle as well as shoulder while his muzzle pushed against the center of her chest which tickled her a lot while her belly fluttered like never before.

The stickiness appeared on her fur as his long and bigger tongue began making lines through and around her breasts, something that that got her to moan and push herself into him because this was getting her pool of moisture to get even more and more itchy in need. The electricity that was buzzing the nerves around the spots he licked was too much for her to keep quiet but when he first nipped her, she eeped in shock but when the chuckle got out of his busy mouth, she frowned decisively but didn't do anything about it, just let him work that tongue of his on her because it was too enjoyable to stop.

His nips and acts of affection moved towards the base of her neck and she was just going to expose it to him fully but then she lost her breath when his mouth collider with hers. This was what she wanted and receiving the love felt incredible, even better when she had just toppled him a minute ago. He had let the restraints to fall and now was bathing her in care and attention, it was too hard to describe even if she tried.

But she was actually losing her breath because he wasn't stopping his kisses which were beginning to leave trailing moisture around both their lips. She tried to take over and push forward but was met with failure when his tongue assaulted her advance with a thrust and got inside her mouth where it danced around her teeth and intertwined with her weak tongue that couldn't win against the gentle, yet stronger aggressor. She was getting slightly dizzy from the lack of oxygen but that didn't mean that they had to stop, she didn't want him to stop. This was something new to her, it was unique and she was afraid that it would end if she complained.

The kiss broke just when her vision began to blur and she gasped loudly as to get air in her strained lungs while the fox above her panted with moisture falling off his mouth and on her chest while that on hers moved down her neck. Both panted heavily without even moving their gazes from one another or even blinking. This was too important for her to miss and she knew where this was heading, it was understandably desirable and she was content of acquiring such an experience even if it would be with somebody from another species. Try everything, right?

She stole a glance at his lower half where he had straddled her and actually saw his pride's red tip to be peeking from the top of his blueberry boxers. The sight got her to squirm beneath him which got the predator to rumble and exhale a hot breath towards her. Her instincts were pushed to their limits and as they had mixed, the one for survival with the other one for another kind of lineage continuity, she felt extremely aroused and unrestrained. She had never done it with anyone and this was her chance to do it with someone she actually wanted to, it was like in those sappy books she had read and it felt surreal.

Nick put one of his paws on her silvery-puffed chest and began grazing her skin with his long and sharp claws down towards her sensitive silver underbelly. She moaned into the sensuality and pushed with her hips into him but because he was heavier, it didn't do much even if he slightly swayed. When he reached his destination she saw him retract those obsidian stimulators and him to make a small amount of space and push his paw under himself and towards her ravishing black trunks but in his angling of his lower half, his tip was now even more visible and her mouth watered just from the idea that it was so close to her, to her pooling stimuli. It was one thing seeing it from a distance and another being so close to her with the details of its pointy tip and thickened red flesh that was incredibly wet.

Her impatience was getting her leg to burst into activity and her upper half to try and get up but that was met with Nick leaning towards her and pushing her down to the ground while his paw reached for the region of her nethers and began rubbing the sides where her thighs were while he didn't touch it directly, something that annoyed her yet made her moan as if he had because electricity buzzed all around the spots of contact. But instead of kissing her, she felt him rub the side of his head into hers very actively which confused her at first but then she understood what he was doing. This was an act of showing trust and love and he moved from under her neck to the other side.

His aroused scent that had mingled with hers was making her crazy to the moon. She didn't have a single clue what her scent was doing to him but she could take a guess because she'd never seen him like this, so loving and intimate yet dominant and daring. The scents of pleasure were so comfortable, so delightful, so enjoyable but then her nose caught something that she had never smelled, it wasn't musky or arousing… it smelled like… violets. She wanted to know what that was and whispered into his ear while he continued rubbing his fur into hers.

"Nick… mmmh… what's that scent?" His reaction was quick as his tongue got out his mouth and licked the rim of her lips as he answered but not before squeezing his paw through the piece of fabric between Judy's legs.

"That's the scent of lo—" he stopped himself and froze, his paw being just mere centimeters from her enlarged clit. She tried to pull herself back so he could reach it but he quickly withdrew his paw and got off of her in panic. "What the fuck did I do!?" He stood up and began pacing left and right and she would've laughed seeing his enlarged foxhood rocking around from his motions in his pants but what she feared was that he was thinking of this as a mistake on his part. It simply wasn't and she needed to get him to understand.

With wobbly legs that felt like jelly, she stood up but the motion managed to grind her sensitive flesh underneath and get her to moan lightly under her breath but she needed to fix this misunderstanding first, the pleasure could wait, for now. She reached for the hysterical fox and pulled his paw to her but in his quick movements, he lost his balance and began falling towards her, yet she was quick and grabbed him in an embrace which saved him from falling on his face.

That was when he inhaled sporadically and pulled away with stutters, "I'm s-sorry J-Judy! I didn't m-meant to! It j-just happened… how the f—" She didn't let him finish and grabbed his head, pulling him so they were now on equal height.

"I'm not! I wanted this so stop being a dumb fox," she asserted with a heavy frown and unmovable certainty yet Nick remained unphased and that was troubling her greatly.

"It's not that…" he added with a shameful voice and his eyes darted in another direction.

"What's the problem then, Nick?" she asked with a tilted head and a very clenching heart as fears and insecurities were starting to be brought up. He really looked distressed and uncertain and that was bewildering her too much for her heart to remain calm.

"I… I uhm… I accidently marked you…" The words didn't register their meaning instantly and she remained puzzled for a bit until realization hit and got her to raise her eyebrows and make an _oh_ with her mouth. Religiously as well as traditionally marking another mammal was sacred and was to be done only when mammals were married, at least in rabbit culture. She didn't believe in those things because her parents didn't manage to suffocate her with traditions as there were just too many kits to look after thus she acquired the liberal point of view which just excluded things that sounded or seemed dull to her, like marking for instance or even marriage itself.

Yet she was feeling awkward that this had just happened because even if she didn't believe this to be a big deal, she felt extremely nervous as well as somehow very accepted because that meant that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. To lose so much control as to mark the other subconsciously, that spoke volumes of his attachment to her and it was filling her with the feeling of love while the marking that breathed violets around her nose was making her craving as well as wanting to do the same to him. She remembered that she had wanted to do the same to him and now maybe her fantasy could become a reality?

The crazy idea sprung in her head just like her ears and she asked unexpectedly, "Can I mark you?" That had done it, the fox in front of her was so flabbergasted that his mouth just stood open like a tunnel for elephants for some time until he shook his head, _ahemed_ and scratched the fur under his chin extremely nervously while his eyes tried several times to readjust as if he had issues with focusing his sight.

"Don't you understand? This is serious!" he tried again and crossed his arms in defiance as well as slight irritation, probably from thinking that she was being ignorant, yet it was exactly the opposite.

She actually smiled at him because he was being so cute and ridiculous about such an old and primal thing that in reality meant a lot to her but she didn't feel it as something bad which meant that she had to make him see. "Did Mr. Fox the Realist become the Traditionalist? I am shocked," she cooed and began giggling with paws in front her mouth while the reynard stood dumfounded and speechless for some time.

When she stopped laughing and managed to stop smirking, she narrowed her eyes on the target who was staying still and vigilant and she closed the distance, stopping very close before him. "I still stand by my words."

"You can't be serious…"

"Oh so you can do it on me but I can't on you?"

"Fluff, stop digging further pl—" She pulled his head and stared into his eyes that were searching for hope in hers but she wasn't giving him any and as he visibly saw no other way, he rolled his eyes with a heavy groan and gave her the side of his cheek to which she moved closer and rubbed her chin into the damp fur of his, spraying it with her essence that carried a richer scent which made Nick to begin sniffing in return.

She covered a small area and with a deep inhale, she moved away and eyed him in joy from what both had just done while a single word flashed through her mind. _Mine._ There was this anticipation of what was to probably come next but Nick didn't seem too amused yet there was this small tug on his lips which told her that he was probably liking it even if he tried to appear otherwise because his nose was just too active.

The ice broke when he finally smiled and quipped, "You're a fox in a bunny disguise…"

Her tail wiggled as she took that as flattery and smiled mischievously at him but then he turned his side at her and eyed the bluish pond before them. He wasn't thinking about them leaving? Didn't he want to do it? She wanted to. But because she still had boundaries and the relationship had just formed, she remained silent and just stood idle with gripped paws in front of herself.

"We're losing light. There's one last place we can check out." She didn't respond but understood that he was probably tired or probably didn't want to continue so fast which she was content with. With silent steps on the damp rock, she got to his side, unnoticed, and her eyes got to the base of his tail which managed to get her fingers very restless and her mind extremely playful. Thus with speed, she grabbed the base of that same entrancing appendage and squeezed with her firm paw, a squeeze that caused the poor vulpine to yelp and jump forward into the water with a splash.

That got the bunny to fall into hysterical laughter and she almost teared up because that wasn't what was anticipated to happen yet it did. The poor tod resurfaced with a few coughs and moved his head so he could meet Judy who was still clenching her belly and almost losing her ability to think.

"I ruined this cute bunny," he mumbled with half his head under the water but she managed to hear his words, especially one of them that always changed her moods. But the lessons of the city as well as the drenched fox in front of her had taught her well.

Moving her weight on one of her legs, she put both paws on her hips and bent one of her erect ears forward an erotic manner. "Did the wet fox say something?" she asked with a quippy tone but didn't receive the desired reaction because he smirked.

"Very wet," was his filled with humor voice and unrelenting stare which wasn't aimed at her eyes but somewhere below… She looked down and saw her trunks which after having had dried a bit on her, now had a visible damp spot exactly where her itching flower was and that got her to blush as she squeezed her thighs together and then moved her agitated glare at the grinning fox who spurt water from his mouth at her direction mockingly and suggestively.

"Don't look there you perv!" she exclaimed and lunged herself at him which got him to widen his eyes and definitely mouth _'Crap'_.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

\- I liked this chapter a lot because it was just emotional, I was slightly tearful at some point...

\- **Music while writing:** _Parov Stelar - Love Is The Drug (feat. Bryan Ferry)_

\- **Latest edit:**

\- **Tumblr:** _markovas_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_


	27. Honor Amongst Thieves

**Honor Amongst Thieves**

* * *

A seemingly disappointed bunny exited an old building and stopped outside just before its stairs, leaning against the brick wall and waiting for a certain fox to come out while her disappointment turned into a very subtle smile that she was trying very hard to hide. He did so shortly after and she could see his puzzlement upon his etched expression and knew full well why he was as such.

"You never intended to choose, did you?" he asked as he put his paws in the pockets of his pants while his initials were ones of tiredness.

"No…" she answered in embarrassment and began playing with one of her ears while looking at Nick innocently from the corner of her eyes that were managing to lightly shine from the weak light of the already-dusked sun.

That visibly got the mildly annoyed predator to sigh in surrender and to shake his head with a chuckle. "Why not just say so?"

Her foot did a circular motion on the ground as she felt slightly guilty for her innocent deception. "I just wanted to hang out with you…" she mumbled and the answer managed to get his eyebrows up but then he smirked like mad and snorted loudly.

"Lil' bunny be makin' the fox a dummy," he quipped and began laughing which got the tension off her shoulders, and her fear of him being mad at her vanished, thus she joined in as well but Nick's humor evaporated as he began searching his pockets after which she saw him slap his forehead and heard him mutter something inaudible. He then sighed heavily and got close to her with one of his paws finding its way on her shoulder which made her heart to flutter from the unexpected touch. "I forgot my wallet!"-she developed a disbelieving frown-"no-no, hah... For real"-he scratched the calm hackles behind him-"gotta go up there again. A lot of floors for this old fox"-but his smile died instantly-"stay here and don't go anywhere, 'kay?"

To his request, she rolled her eyes because he was talking to as if to a kit but he probably had his reasons, this was Happytown after all, it wasn't a very good area but the apartment they had visited was very decent, without the fact that the rentable space was on the 12th floor and the elevator was broken. Facts, who needed them. Nick cupped the side of her head and caressed the place where he had marked her after which he huffed and tried to start walking but she grabbed his paw out of nowhere and pulled him back.

Nick was extremely stunned as he stood idle and gazing into Judy's glistering lilacs while her sad smile turned more so, therefor turning her into an incredibly cute sight. She put her other paw on his restrained one and her nose twitched but no words were exchanged, just looks and a lot of body language that was hinting that Judy wanted something from the very confused fox. Her head tilted to the side a bit, without breaking eye contact, while her short claws grazed his skin on the backside of his paw and she sensed a small and momentary shudder from his part.

Her mind was trying to figure out how much time he'd need to understand what she was thinking about but because he was being a dumb fox, she sighed with closed eyes and stepped closer to him which got his eyes to narrow but she was swift as her body had become taller, being already on her toes, and her paws were now around his neck, paws that pulled him to her as she glued her lips to his. The taste of him made her ears to spring up and her claws to dig into his hackles as well as neck while she pushed herself into him with closed eyes and began smooching him around the front of his muzzle, smooches that he didn't respond to definitely from bewilderment from her sudden urge.

But then she felt his body to push against hers and his paws to touch the back of her head and the backside of one of her thighs, just below her rump, as he pulled it to him and began returning the affection she had began. His tongue moved around the rim of her lips but she didn't surrender and caught the pink long flesh with her buck teeth and growled adorably with a scrunched face and dangerously-narrowed lilacs right at Nick who had halted and was looking at her in awe but then managed to pull his tongue out of her hold and angled his neck so that now it was exposed to the slightly winded bunny.

She didn't wait to be told what to do as she knew very well what this meant and it was making her legs to turn into jelly as well as her heart because after everything that had happened, this felt unreal and too good to be true, almost like a dream from which she didn't want to ever wake up. Her face buried itself in the cushy creamy fur of his neck which was doubtlessly the fluffiest part of him. Her nose inhaled deeply and her lungs were tickled from the aroma of musk which got her to giggle with small coughs and her to purr into him. Something was amiss and her instincts were telling her to fill that emptiness, thus she pushed her body further into him and tried to do what she had done in the cave but now on a larger scale.

But just as she was to do the act of devotion, one of her ears went erect as someone from the other sidewalk yelled discordantly, "Get-a room'ya freaks o' nature!" Judy growled into Nick's neck and glared instantly at the mammal who had just insulted both of them. The mammal was a female elk with a vibrant skirt who was eyeing them with a lot of disapproval from the other side of the street and Judy was just not understanding why mammals just didn't mind their own business. Was it so hard? She wanted to give the prejudiced mammal a piece of her mind and tried to break free from Nick's hold but she was quickly pulled into a tighter embrace and flung into the air as he angled his body so she couldn't see the annoying elk anymore.

"No, let m— I'll show her fre— Nick!" She was cut off when he nipped her lip and grinned at her playfully while the mammal on the other side of the street groaned desperately and walked away. But Judy crossed her arms and looked away in irritation even if her heart was beating insanely fast and her itchiness around her loins was begging her to continue. But she felt something wet to go under her chin and push against her throat gently and when she looked at him, she could see from atop his muzzle, with his emeralds being just in front of her, while his inhales through his nose tickled her throat and got her to gulp from the feeling of indecisiveness.

"Don't let them see that they get to you," his soothing voice vibrated from below her and around her body which brought about a happy whimper and got her to grab the sides of his muzzle for support. His teeth were so close to her most vulnerable part of her body but instead of feeling scared or unsure for the safety of her life, she actually wanted him to just bite her there but he wasn't showing any signs of attempts at that, more like he wanted to calm her down. "I'll be right back. We can… _talk_ about this when we get back. Or whatever else you want to do," Nick finished with a wink as his eyes half-closed.

"Anything?" she asked so sweetly that Nick's ears fell.

"Anything," he reassured and exhaled through his nose and into the spot of pressure which made her to giggle and him to back off from her. He forced his wagging tail to stop and licked his lips as he made a pointing motion with his finger at her to stay put to which she huffed and just followed his movements with her eyes as he began his journey to the last floor whilst she touched the spot he had his nose pressed against and dreamily sighed.

They had childishly played and fought in that same cave in which her memories brought images and senses that gave her goosebumps from when they had showed each other their care and affection to each other. But as they were to exit, there was a problem with both of them being drenched in water which held an issue within, so Nick had come up with the idea for both of them to get out and just lay underneath the sun, to let its smile do its course which was met with reluctance from Judy's part but as there seemed to be no other reasonable option, she had accepted with paws across her chest.

They had gone out through the thick waterfall stream and had sat near a concrete wall that had obscured them from the road behind the fence, while the sun bathed them in warmth but Nick had done something strange as he had put the suitcase between them. She was just to ask why back then when she had seen his boxers to land on the black suitcase with water splashing a bit in her eyes. She could remember the mortification and bashfulness he had put her through and she had looked away even if she couldn't see his lower half because of the dividing obstacle. She had already had engraved memories of his package, but when she wasn't in the zone of hormones, she just wasn't feeling comfortable with these kind of things, at least yet.

He had tried to convince her to do the same if she was to feel comfortable afterwards but she didn't give in even if the idea that there would be discomfort had been nagging at her hard, she couldn't do that in public nor in front of him even if in the cave she hadn't really cared and wanted nothing less of doing the opposite of now. They both had dried, as much as it was possible, and dressed up but not with their smart appearances but with their casual ones as Nick had told her that they were going to Happytown, something that when she had heard had made her frown, yet she accepted his suggestion for the continuation of the journey because it had been nothing but thrilling fun, body exhilarating sensations and mind-energizing excitement.

When they had searched for the exact apartment complex, Judy had asked Nick if he had some kind of affiliation with the place and surprisingly she found out that he had used to live there with his mother who he didn't know where she was. Judy had tried to get more out of him but his answers were generic and short which meant that he didn't want to talk about that topic and that had gotten her to reasonably understand that something had gone terribly wrong with him and his mom but she didn't probe further and just dropped it until further notice.

It had been a fun adventure as she had felt new things as well as seen, while bonding further with him as they had at last talked about that certain topic he was avoiding so desperately, and now, now they were both in agreement to try climb the next step, an agreement that was getting her to fantasize so many things in so many different variants, some being ones of preferred intimacy while others being of devoid innocence. Maybe after they were done, they could go back in his den… their den? And maybe she could try and experience what her sisters would frequently talk about, something that she didn't really understand or care at the time of her quest for success.

Maybe, maybe definitely. She rubbed the marked spot on the side of her head and put her finger close to her nose which wiggled as the smell of violets got her to shiver delightfully. She really enjoyed this and ants were now crawling around her feet, thus making them restless and out of place which got her to want to run up the stairs and get close to the roguish fox again who was probably slugging up the stairs. Yes, she was to do that, she wanted to do that and just as she was to begin her sprint of want, some loud scream from behind the buildings on the other side of the road sprung her ears and squeezed her heart.

The loud piercing and blood-chilling noise instantly disappeared and the street lights just took a deep breath and beamed around the dirty sidewalks and streets where trash was scattered all around while cars seemed to have become extinct. Her heart was telling her to check out that noise as someone may be in trouble but her mind was heavily restraining her decisions as she remembered what had happened just two days ago as well as what Nick had said. It was dusk and the sky was beginning to lose its vibrance which meant that her vision was going to become even worse and this was a very bad place to not have one of your most important senses.

But someone may be needing her help, hell, somebody could be getting killed as of now and if she closed her eyes that would mean she was to blame as well. She couldn't do that, she had the power in her paws unlike when she was helpless with the death of her best friend. Anger boiled inside her stomach and she growled soundly at her hesitancy to do what was right, thus she jumped off the steps with incredible agility, crossing the street very quickly and pushing through the darkness that was in a long alley which was surrounded with old red-bricked houses. The other end of the alley could be seen as light shined over the streets with a slow car passing just before her vision but her eyes tried to find the mammal who was in trouble.

Her lilacs moved up where the top of the buildings were visible with some of the roof gutters hanging loose off the actual construction and they swayed when wind blew past them which got them to creak and vibrate eerily. There were broken tiles on the ground, probably having fallen from the buildings of disrepair. The walls of the homes didn't have insulation, just the bare red bricks that were very common around Happytown. It was as if the place was from another era, it was ghastly. There were doors that probably acted as some kind of auxiliary entrances but as she neared a corner where the alley spread into another one, she hugged the dirty wall with her back.

She was sure that the scream had come from somewhere out that alley and carefully, as to not get noticed or heard, peeked her head as she needed to know her surroundings because the element of surprise was crucial, knowing full well that there predators were a majority and a bunny like her would only catch gazes of hate or other disgusting thoughts. The place looked clear but it extended further in between the houses with the smell of rotten trash getting to her intensely while the low visibility sprawled her imagination wild and unchecked but she moved forward, she had to do so.

The end of the alley drew closer and that was when she saw what looked like a broken door that was holding onto just one of its hinges, but even if her instincts were screaming at her to go back, she entered the black corridor. It was bizarre, cold and very foul and just as she was to pull her phone out as to use her flashlight, she collided with something metallic which got her to _ouch_ and rub her disturbed nose. There was a small amount of light coming from what looked like a keyhole and she knew that this must be a door for which's handle she searched and managed to grab it in the thick darkness.

It opened with a blood-chilling screech and her heart began beating faster but when she peeked her head, she saw the bluish sky and a continuation of the surrounded alley, but at its end there seemed to be what looked like a chain link fence with a door that was open and behind which was what looked like the tinges of orange, probably a fire because it danced around the dusty walls that were filled with too much graffiti of embarrassing images and words.

She thought that it was probably a homeless mammal having a bad dream or having stumbled its toe but then she heard chatter as well as laughter of mammals and that got her nose very restless but she needed to be sure and pressed on, passing the chain link door in a moment's notice and hugging the impure wall. The sounds that were coming from behind that corner sounded as if flesh was being torn apart with growls and laughs in between.

Hope was the only thing that was keeping her from outright going into panic but when she peeked her small head around the corner, what she saw drained the blood from her head and filled her veins with uncertainty. There were around four mammals, a pig in very dirty wears that was definitely taller than Nick as well as fatter. He was sitting on a crate and his clothes were stained with red while he was gnawing on what seemed to be a piece of a long bone with raw flesh hanging from where he had taken chunks of it. The other mammal that was next to that pig was a bear but he was smaller than him yet looked quite stout and he seemed to be actually sleeping against the wall with a widely opened mouth and a lolling tongue.

There was a strange mammal that didn't have any fur on him and his paws, more like fins, seemed to have 5 fingers but there weren't any claws on them which was odd. The mammal's head had a strange trunk, just like an elephant's, which was extending down from his nose and just slightly below his mouth. She knew that this was definitely a sea mammal because she remembered having read about how they had evolved and were now able to stand tall on their legs but she'd never seen one in the flesh and the mammal was huge, two times taller than Nick with a very wide waist and belly. He was one big mammal which was intimidating her highly just by his appearance alone while his tattered clothes added up to the effect even so.

The last of the visible group of mammals was a maned wolf that was almost Nick's size but half a head higher. The mammal was dressed neatly but his clothes were ruined by the bright red that covered them, and before him, where the blazing fire in the sootlike barrel was, there were what looked like cooking remains of meat on a piece of metal grid which was visibly being used like a grill but the fumes smelled sharply of plastic which was insanely hazardous.

"Cock-face, go open 'er up," yapped the maned wolf while munching on what seemed to be raw meat in his mouth, a sight that was disturbing Judy greatly, yet she watched as the need to understand was greater than her repulsion which was being still stably kept inside her rumbling stomach.

The elephant seal grumbled and flipped the bird at the maned wolf. "Suck me cock, dingy-ass shait. Ain't be touching that aids-infested grass-muncher"

The predator's mane electrified and he glared at the mammal who wasn't wanting to follow his orders. "But ya'll be eatin' from 'er, won't'ya, lazy fuck."

"I bashed'er head shitty open. YOU CUT'ER! Now, shut'e fuck up!" The large mammal yelled and steam forced itself out his swaying trunk to which the maned wolf exposed his teeth but in between the staring, he scoffed and lost interest.

"Plankton-eatin' furless bastard…" The predator stopped doing whatever he was doing above the fire and got around the barrel from where he grabbed onto something and began pulling it towards Judy's field of view and what she saw got her jaw to tremble in horror, it made her unable to gulp and her heart was beating so viciously that it was hurting from inside. She couldn't believe what she was seeing, it was disgusting, inmammale and horrific. Conclusions began spurring around her head and she was beginning to grasp what had happened there with the realization making the corner of her eyes to dampen.

It was the corpse of the female elk that had yelled at her and Nick from the other side of the street, the elk whose head now was split open with visible pieces of brain hanging out of the opened crack of her skull, it was leaking fluids as well and Judy's stomach was in a whirlwind of repulsion and she would've puked if she hadn't put her paw in front of her mouth and forced herself to not be seen or heard.

The elk was missing her arms and her stomach was slashed open with guts hanging out and staining her ruined skirt that used to keep her decent, unlike now. The maned wolf stopped pulling the elk and dropped her legs after which he eyed her for a moment and then grabbed what looked like an axe that had been obscured by the loud pig's body who seemed to be into his immoral snack a bit too much.

The pig snorted and grinned maliciously. "Use dem claws predy, stop being such a wuss."

Not even turning to look at him, the predator retorted with an annoyed tone, "Claws don't cut bone, dip-shit. And pigs don't eat meat… fuckin' failed abortion."

A snort came out of the pig. "Say who? That dead bitch here?" he asked and eyed the dead mammal in front to which the predator sighed angrily and swung the axe at the elk's leg, cutting into her flesh and burying the metal inside of her which caused clotting-blood to ooze slowly and wet shlicks and shlaps to be heard. Judy couldn't look at the savageness anymore and she pushed herself against the wall with her back while tears streamed down her face after which she hugged herself and sat on the dirty ground, sobbing extremely quietly into her legs and trying to find reason for what had just happened and why.

But there was none and the strikes against flesh and bone were drilling into her ears that she grabbed and tried to block from the vile sounds of evil yet it was in vain, it was getting to her and was twisting her insides in a despicable way of derailment. That there had been a living and breathing mammal and now, now it was a lifeless corpse that was going to be used to fill some moronic mammals' bellies, something barbaric and unnecessary in the world they lived in, in the country they lived in, yet it was happening, it was happening before her eyes and she couldn't do anything about it if she was to not lose her own life.

What were her chances to beat four mammals that seemed to be murderers and psychos, one of them being so big that if he wanted, he could just squash her into the ground with just his feet. She didn't want to die like that and her mind was screaming at her desperately to run, to save herself if she was not to become like that elk there, a mammal that was way bigger than her, and yet had fallen to the pack of savage criminals.

The fire cracked around the corner and the darkness was becoming more and more inhospitable to Judy, even if the sky was healthy and glistering. That was when wind passed by her and brushed her fur which furthered on the chillness in her body and got her to feel this piercing coldness inside. Her paws were shivering and her body was numb as well as cold, she wanted to just get out of there and to go to Nick, to seek comfort as she now had an idea what he had gone through even if she had met death before, meeting it again like this was too much for her to grasp and accept. She couldn't accept this but there was nothing to be done. Or was it?

Her phone was on her and she could call the police, an act that would probably earn some results, at least get those savages in jail for what they had done to that poor soul that was now not amongst the living but just as she was to pull it out, an extremely loud squeal came from behind the corner and she jumped from her spot and onto her two feet while her nose went insane and her ears sprung in an instant.

That was when she saw the maned wolf to appear from behind the corner with widely-opened eyes and extended claws as he grinded his feet into the ground as to stop his sprint and he almost grabbed her but she saw that if she tried to go back, he'd catch her, thus she dashed to where he had come from, surprising him incredibly but trapping herself on the other side in between barriers of flesh and constructs of solidity. She breathed rapidly as her adrenalin-fueled muscles wanted more energy while her eyes scanned the darkened surroundings which had the big elephant seal heading her way with the pig on his side who was holding the bloodied axe but the bear seemed to be still sleeping, thank God.

There wasn't a lot of space to maneuver as the predator was blocking her exit but because the rest were bigger than her, she was faster and when the maned wolf tried again to grab her arm, she twisted herself and charged at the big seal who tried to stomp her but failed as she dodged it almost by mere luck and got around him, running madly at the desecrated corpse of the dead female.

That was when the pig threw the axe at her, and because she was a bit too close to him, she was hit by its blunt side which saved her from it burying itself in her but the force winded her down and made her to groan soundly in pain because the force pierced through her ribcage but she had to keep running, she needed to escape somehow.

Just as she was passing by the snoring bear, a desperate yell came from the only known escape, "SNATCH 'ER'YA HYBERNATIN' KNOB!"

The bear stirred out of his sleep and Judy could see that he was realizing what was happening but when the seal behind her roared, the vibrations caused her to lose her hearing so much that a headache appeared inside her skull which got her to lose track of the previously-sleeping bear who managed to catch the end of her black-tipped ear, but because he visibly was still dazed, she managed to slip with tears in her eyes as the pull brought excruciating pain at the base of her precious appendage.

She passed by the dead mammal and saw that her throat was slit open and the details on the top of her widely opened head managed to at last get her to spew her stomach's contents on the ground and herself with bitterness making its presence know all around her mouth but she had to escape, nothing else mattered, she didn't want to end up like that, she had to survive and her instincts were helping her by a ton because her reflexes were heightened and her speed was incredible. That was when her eyes noticed a continuation of the alley that had been obscured by the angle of the building whose engineer probably hadn't been in his right mind when drawing the schematics or maybe it was the builders.

That wasn't of importance and she sprinted towards the next smaller alley where darkness was even worse but even as her feet stumbled upon trash and she almost collided with a sizable dumpster, she was gaining distance between herself and the mammals who were very loudly chasing after her but when she rounded a corner, her face was depleted of blood because in front of her stood a barbed wire fence. Her eyes scanned for doors, windows… There was a downspout but it was broken and had fallen on the dusty ground. Visibly there was no other escape but her trying to climb the fence that would definitely give her scars.

But just as she was to do that, she heard someone to quickly stop behind her and she turned around in a stance of readiness. It was the maned wolf who was breathing hard with saliva falling of his bloodied maw and onto his reddened half-unbuttoned shirt. He looked insane and her skin was swirling in anxiety but her face remained firm even if her mind was picturing her neck in between his teeth of his which was sending instinctive trembles around her whole being.

"Be 'ey good bunny and don't run. We'll kill'ya quicker," he sniggered but it looked as if he wasn't taking her seriously which made her to recognize that and she instantly let get guard down and hugged herself after she had swooshed her drooped ears in front and trapped them while her jaw shivered. She didn't want to take the risk but it was worth the try, after all, she was just a simple and cute little bunny.

"Attagirl! Come'ere. Now!" he growled and Judy submitted while trying to keep herself in check for what was to come. With visibly hesitant steps, she closed the distance and felt a strong grip around her collar with sharp claws digging into her skin and cloth which got her to whimper, yet she kept her gaze away from the vile predator but the repulsion was making her paws and feet restless but she needed to wait for the opportune moment.

That was when other steps were heard with panting and yells of anger coming by which got the maned wolf to shout, "Shlong-face! Got'er! Let's ge—" That was when the predator made his biggest mistake as he moved his gaze towards the alley he had come forth from and exposed his throat to Judy who instantly narrowed her eyes and grabbed the scruff around his neck while her other paw flung with all her might into the center of his speaking apparatus which made the maned wolf to instantly let her go and fall to the ground with paw around his throat while he gurgled with anguishable moans and tightly shut eyes.

She could've kicked his head right there but he was defenseless and wasn't in condition to fight back which brought a stinging sensation within her code and the groundwork of her ideals. She wasn't like them and falling on their level would mean that she had already failed, you couldn't stop misery with misery. Yet there was that gnawing thought telling her otherwise, that same dark voice she could remember at her apartment or when someone tried to demean her, thus she scrunched her face in distaste and decided to just run as her improvised plan was now in motion.

The pig got first out from the shadows and attempted to regain his breath as he put his hooves on his ankles and tried to collect his breath while the big seal lumbered out and pushed him hard, not visibly keen on asking space to be made. But instead of seeing anger, she saw amusement in the sea mammal as he actually laughed deeply.

"Retard's ass got served by a flatfoot. HAHAH!" He grabbed his belly and began roaring in laughter and that confused the hell out of Judy who was trying her best to find an exit but the two mammals were blocking it very well with their bodies. She could see the predator from the corner of her eyes who was still groaning and curling himself in pain but that wasn't going to be like that forever, she needed to act immediately.

The pig seemed to have collected his breath and from his pants, he pulled out a really nasty knife that was incredibly rusty but she didn't falter, she was a trained officer and even if the odds were against her, she had trust in her abilities, in her training and experience, even if none amounted to the real thing… to the smell of blood and images of cruelty.

The pig spat an insult and charged at Judy with very short stabbing motions with his knife while the seal didn't seem to be having an interest in joining in as tears were actually streaming down his cheeks from the intoxicating laughter that had infected him. She didn't have much space and the attacks were incredibly fast which meant that the only way not to get injured was to go backwards but then she hit the wall and the pig lunged at her but her feet propelled her to the side and she even managed to grab the arm that was holding the knife, an arm which she pulled towards her side and backfisted the pig's nose but he didn't drop the rusty weapon, only angrily squealed.

Judy tried to disarm him but because her paws were now shaking from the state of shock she was in, she didn't feel when she had released his hoof and that was when she felt something blunt to hit her in the ribs. She quickly pulled away and saw that he had hit her with the handle while his arm moved across his now-bloodied nose and he actually smiled at her, showing his unkempt teeth and meat stuck in between, it was nasty. She knew that he was stronger than her and that meant that technique against his wrists wasn't going to be such a great idea and then she remembered how she had dazed him when she hit his nose. That was it.

What she had in mind was something incredibly risky because if she failed, that knife could burry itself anywhere very deeply but she had no choice, the pig was already in motion and that was when she turned her back at him and sprinted against the wall with footsteps just behind her ears. "Can't run, cunt!"

Just a meter before the wall, she jumped, while in motion, and angled her feet so they would act as springs. And so they did. "Fucki—" She was now turned around and in the split second that she saw him, the fear in his face was all too visible, fear that got him to actually lower his hoof that was holding the knife and her mouth to morph into a subtle smile as her tough legs propelled her at the aggressor with lightning speed and strength and sent her flying at his face in which both her feet collided and got him to fall on the ground and on the backside of his temple, thus knocking himself out.

She still had speed and rolled on the ground as to lessen the fall which mashed her head and got her to feel a bit dizzy but her paws and feet instinctively got her up and her unfocused eyes blinked several times as she sought for the seal. Her ears weren't hearing his maniacal laughter anymore and just as her vision returned, she could see the maned wolf trying now to get up with very vicious growls while the seal seemed rather disappointed as well as… surprised?

"Enough, grass-muncher," he tried to assert as he began moving at her direction but she wasn't going to surrender, not when escape was being guarded by one big oaf who, when he tried to grab her, failed so and she was able to move around his side and deliver a very nasty kick into his knee tendon which actually got him to buckle and lose his balance as he leaned with a fin against the wall and roared in pain.

Every single one of them had underestimated her in some way and that filled her with pride because of her abilities and hard work even if she was feeling quite out of breath and aching around the ribs but her exit was clear and she took it with a sprint like never before. She could see the light on the other side but then instantly remembered that there were four mammals… The bear was missing and he could be waiting for her to come out so he could snatch her. He must've been hiding behind that corner and she wasn't going to let him surprise her. She was smarter than that.

But just when she was passing by the sizable dumpster in that small alley, something grabbed one of her legs hard and swung her back into the metal construct with the grip on her leg fading away but not the speed. She was airborne for just a few moments until her back collided with the metal container and she lost all her breath while pain spread itself all around her spine but just as she was sure that someone would finish her off, her legs pushed themselves and she managed to get up but no one was grabbing her and she thought that it was now or never but what happened next managed to bring forth even more despair because she lost her balance and fell head on onto the ground after which she tried again to stand up but her vision was blurred and her body wasn't responding normally. Then she heard laughter from hence she had come.

She could faintly see the shapes of the two mammals that were blocking her exit but she tried to stand up yet again, she needed to escape, she needed to get to Nick, to safety. With incredible strain, her body was now on her legs and she tried to charge at the visibly strong barrier of flesh and bone but a headache pierced her brain and back and she screamed in agony as she collided with someone's leg after which she felt a strong grip around her throat and her feet were now off the ground and she was thrown back, grinding her injured back against the slabs while heavy footsteps began originating from behind.

"She has fight in," taunted the bear from the frontal barrier but Judy was focused more on trying to escape yet her head was swimming in torment and her lungs were filled with searing hotness while her nerves on her back were twisting in suffering and misery but she tried again yet her attempt was met with something heavy and that got her to fall on her back which got her to outright scream in distress. It was the elephant seal's foot and he was starting to push his weight on her to which her breath was stolen and her body was starting to enter indescribable torment. Was this how it was going to end? Crushed under someone's foot because she was at the wrong place at the wrong time? Because she had tried to do the right thing?

Unfair…

There was some muffled talking which she couldn't understand as she was too busy not passing out and outright dying but because her energy was fading, she was starting to seep into darkness and the eternal dreams, but because who knows why, the pressure subsided and she gasped loudly yet didn't have time to rest because a clawy paw grabbed her ears and began pulling her somewhere, grinding the back of her waist which at least was being protected by her tattering-jeans. Why had she to suffer so much, why not just kill her and be done with it. Everything went to hell so quick just because she tried to do the right thing, because she again didn't listen to the fox that had went through what she was just stepping into.

Her conscious blindness was to blame and she knew that and what was to come was her fault but why did it have to be so painful… She felt that same paw to grab her by the scruff of her neck and to throw her at the wall where she slumped down and hugged herself while her whole body trembled in pain, shock and dread. She had curled into a ball and had surrendered to whatever fate was to come, there was no escaping this, not after she was so badly injured even if it could be temporary or permanent, her brain wasn't at capacity to understand because it was pulsating hard while her jaw clenched in strain.

She had to try and give herself some moments of rest and then she'd try to run again. Yes. That was the plan, thus she eyed her surroundings and could see the elephant seal leaning against the other side of the wall and eyeing her angrily while the maned wolf threw the overcooked meat into the fire and glanced at her through narrowed eyes. The bear had returned in his original position and was very close to her but he didn't seem interested in looking at her. That was when she saw the pig she had knocked out cold with blood behind his head and a limping gait as he began shortening the distance between him and her.

Her legs tried to stand up reflexively just from the sight of the mammal who visibly intended to hurt her badly but the pain around her back managed to bring her to cough and lose all her breath as it squeezed her lungs piercingly, thus she forced her eyes shut and that was when she felt something kinda sharp under her throat to which she opened her moist eyes and saw the raging inferno in the pig's bloodshot eyes.

"I'm goin—" he winced and put one hoof on his head while the knife pushed into her and thank God for her fur because if she didn't have it, the unsharpened knife would've probably dug into her neck. The pig shook his head and groaned fiercely to which she gulped and thought that he was going to do it like he had probably done to the elk. A clean cut… at least it wasn't going to be any torture.

"Hey! HEY!" a disgruntled voice stopped the pig from ending Judy's life.

"What?" the pig turned sideways and glared at the maned wolf.

"Don't stress the food. Bad for the taste," he more like ordered but grinned, nevertheless, to which the pig rolled his eyes and scoffed.

"Fuck I care…" The knife was removed Judy's throat and she released her breath she had held and inhaled rapidly while staring at the predatory mammal in disguise of a prey. That was when she saw him to swing his hoof to which she raised one arm to defend herself but his blow was strong and the slap landed hard on her cheek and she would've bitten her tongue if she hadn't gotten her jaw closed. The blow got her to fall on the side but she didn't stay down but tried to retaliate to which she only received another hard slap which mashed her brain inside her skull and got her woozy.

"Down you fucking rodent!" The pig spat and this time she didn't try to defend her honor because the experience was almost like torture, thus she lay on the ground, pulled her knees close to her and hid her head into them as she tried to collect energy and focus because if not, there was no escape from this, not when she was intended to be used as food.

She lay there, intensely listening but none were talking, the only sounds being those of the fire and quiet groans of the mammals she had managed to hurt in self-defense. The night was now nigh and it was getting colder while distant shouts could be heard some blocks away with several gunshots following by which got the bear to wake up and stare at the maned wolf who motioned with his paw that there was nothing to worry about. This place was awful and she couldn't understand how nothing was done about it, how could this be in Zootopia? How could someone get gutted and eaten inside civilization… it was beyond her.

At last someone decided to speak up, that being the maned wolf. "Sup, dickface?"

The seal growled with a very angry glare but then scoffed and retorted, "Why so hoarse?"

She dared to look at them from in between her protecting legs. The maned wolf actually smiled as he threw a piece of cooked meat into his maw and mumbled, "Outplayed! Fuckin' bunnies, mamm!" The reaction from the seal was a deep grumble. "But squealer there got-it worst… Knocked out! Can't believe it!" the predator guffawed with the seal joining in with a few snickers while the pig dug the knife into the crate he was sitting on.

"Fuck off…" The pig spat but trailed off and moved his gaze onto Judy as he noticed that she was looking at him and curled his lips which made her to instantly hide herself with her heart squeezing in anxiety that he'd come and abuse her even more. But nothing happened and she used those short moments to think how they had found her out, how they had caught her off guard and had managed to corner her. Yes, she could've just ran back but the maned wolf would've definitely caught her as he was already in motion so she had to surprise him and do the unexpected. But how had they found her out?

"There's been talk 'bout the ring. Think imma try me luck," the elephant seal began after a few moments silence and that stopped her thoughts as she was intending to listen, maybe learn something about them which she could probably use. It was a small chance but worth the try.

The predator scoffed loudly and tilted his head at the big mammal. "You a idiot? A bunny almost got'ya fucked up. You think t—"

"I'm for real dip-shit!"

The pig pushed into the conversation, "I heard Stinghorn is going to participate." The maned wolf snorted while the elephant seal's confidence dropped like a bag of rocks in water.

"Maybe n-next time…" the seal nervously backed off and scratched his neck.

The predator steered the subject, "Boss wants us to find participants…" he looked at Judy for a brief moment and she dared to hope but he shook his head and continued, "We can't use that. Broken." Judy wanted to show them otherwise and tried to stand up quickly but she couldn't and just hugged the wall in a sitting position to which it seemed that the mammals lost interest as she did that and that got her to feel incredibly frail and powerless.

"We'll need some vulps 'n' actual rodents… Dunno why'd they want those darm fuckin' rodents all-the time, but I 'eard Big's gonna 'e there."

"Who else?" asked the seal and crossed both his arms.

Coughing a bit and rubbing his neck, the predator answered, "Bah! Dem other bosses, how'd I know? We've got that crazy giraffe-fuck… I hear that vixen's gonna-come… white as Tundratown snow… Anyone seen'er?" The rest of the mammals didn't respond to his dreamily-asked question so he continued, "I did'nd I tell'ya, she's fuckin' gorgeous… even winked at-me! She wan'ed the kno—"

The seal interrupted him harshly as he began laughing wholeheartedly, "Winked? Blahah! More-like flinched you anorexic, thin-legged bitch… winked… hahah…" Judy could see the anger around the maned wolf and she moved closer to the crate where the pig yawned from above.

"I ain't anorexic! Got-it, cock-face?! It's fuckin' genetics. Push that into'yo fuckin' shit-filled head!" the predator yelled and seemed even ready to pounce the larger mammal who stopped laughing and normalized his behavior, yet there was that taut in his expression that Judy could even see in her desynchronizing vision.

"I disagree," the seal concluded and kept eyeing the smaller mammal in front and Judy could sense that there was a psychological battle being fought for leadership which, from her observations, was held by the maned wolf yet he was being challenged non-stop.

"I don't give a shit, mamm!" the predator snapped and pulled out a gun from the inside of his half-unbuttoned shirt which he aimed at the now-mortified seal who actually hugged the wall. Judy's eyes widened as she could see that what the maned wolf was holding wasn't a tranquilizer but an actual firearm that could take a life in just a mere blink. She didn't want to witness more murder and moved her eyes away from the two mammals but in that moment she noticed the dead elk staring with her lifeless eyes directly into Judy's and she quickly hugged her knees and tried to get herself in check as quietly as possible because she was sure that the pig would try to harm her for fun even more.

"Wanna say somethin'?" the predator yapped and there was some misplaced fury in his eyes as the hammer clicked in place and the trigger was now mere centimeters from taking the life of the trembling mass of a mammal in front. It was an old pawgun but it definitely was lethal which was too evident.

"N-no…" was the short and fearful response but the trigger clicked and the hammer crashed into the cartridge, thus loudly sending the heavy led towards the seal who quickly fell on the ground while Judy grabbed her ears that began ringing hard and she didn't even think about running because she knew that there was no escape from that, there just wasn't… She opened her mouth a few times in an attempt to reduce the echoing inside her skull and she even dared to look but her eyes widened while her nose wiggled because there just wasn't any blood on the wall, none.

"Get up, fat-ass. Hope'ya haven' pissed dem pants," the maned wolf quipped and laughed a bit mockingly which got Judy to refocus her vision and notice the smoke coming out of the pawgun while a visible hole was in the bricks which got obscured by the seal as he stood up but now didn't dare to even look at either of the mammals which meant that his fear was taken.

"Virg!" The predator swished towards the pig while swaying his gun around nonchalantly. "Tell me. Why're pigs…"-the pig glared at him disapprovingly while he only grinned-"cops… snoopin' around 'ere more-often? Ya'don't think they wanna put-a Precinct 'ere?" he asked while emphasizing his words with his gun but the pig seemed relaxed enough and not distressed at all by the predator's behaviour.

"Mayor's end of the mandate. He wants 4 more years."

"Lionfuck huh? He thinks he's'n charge… Why doesn't he pass a law so we-c'n eat 'n' sell _meat_. Not hide 'n these fuckin' alleys! He'll be doin' the whole world a-favour!"

The pig seemed ready to object but the words struck a nerve deep within Judy as she was greatly troubled and angered at the predator's way of thinking, so she shouted with a lot of determination, "Shut up you monster! You all deserve to be locked up for what you've done!" Her chest felt a bit lighter because she had stepped over her fear but she flinched when a loud bash originated from near her ears where the end of the crate was.

"Silence, ro—"

"Hey! Let's hear'er. She did beat-us bloody. Especially'ya," the predator snorted but then moved closer to the doe and took a knee with the gun swaying in front of him while his eyes focused entirely on Judy's.

Judy didn't yield to his stare and began, "What all of you are doing is wrong in the most repulsing way. You can't take a mammal's life just to eat them. You can't even take a mammal's life! You don't have that right!" she yelled and hoped somehow that someone would hear her but that was very doubtful because just a minute or so ago, there were gunshots with the maned wolf shooting after that as well, and still there was nothing, not even the siren of a police cruiser.

"Wrong? So what?" the predator retorted with mockery.

"That mammal may have had a family, children, parents and you have now taken all of that from them. Because you just want to taste meat!"

"Hear that mamms? That bitch may've 'ad family. Bohoo!" he began laughing extremely jestingly while the others joined him with slight tittering. "Cry me-a river, muncher." He moved even closer to her. "Wanna know what's wrong?" She didn't answer and that was when she felt the cold barrel of the gun to press against her forehead while her nose wiggled from the smell of burnt gunpowder. Her foot began thumping the air she could feel some kind of piercing chill all around her body. "Listenin' to a-rodent!"

She could take the gun and try to aim it at him, yes she could… one of his fingers pushed the hammer down and it clicked in place, she had missed her chance and was now feeling extremely anxious because he didn't seem to be joking and the steel was pressing harder and harder into her head so much that her skull was beginning to hurt and that got her to close her eyes in trepidation.

It wasn't like this drill wasn't trained in the academy, it was but it just wasn't like the real thing because there was this doubt and the fear for one's life that was paralyzing her limbs and will. It was like she knew she could do it, but in the meantime her mind was restricting her by filling her with hope that she'd be spared if she didn't do anything or that a better opportunity would arise and such. They never did taught her that there and she was furious at herself for lacking such qualities and abilities.

But now there was only one thing that remained, the anticipation of searing pain to pass through her and then darkness to overtake her purely because she didn't believe there to be anything else beyond this life but that wasn't certain. Well, she'd find out soon enough and that was when she grit her teeth because of fear from the sensation of when the bullet would go through her head. Just picturing that got her to squirm and whimper but then the pressure subsided from her temple and that got her to open her moist eyes.

The maned wolf put the gun back out of view behind his shirt and went back to the barrel where he turned around the cooking meat but then she saw him tugging his pants and heard him slap his tongue inside his mouth. "Know what? Found some use for'ya!" he declared with a smile and again closed the distance between him and Judy. She could visibly see the change in his appearance and her body was now in boundless horror. She saw him reach for her but she swatted his paw away yet he managed to put it on the back of her head and grab her ears after which he began pulling her out of her ball of safety to which she was met with the thirsty oaken eyes of the predator who smelled off, something that got her despair to overcome all rationality.

"NO!" she screamed and tried to scurry away but his grip was heavy and she was powerless because her energy was drained.

"Don't make me beat'ya unconscious, rodent. Let's get meh satisfied," he said and continued pulling her towards the darker part of the alley while the other mammals minded their own business, seemingly unphased by what was going to happen. If she was honest with herself, she actually preferred to die instead of going through such abuse, such hostility and cruelty. This mammal wanted to do things to her that were making her stomach turn just from the thought and she was impotent to do anything about it. All that training, all those countless hours of practice were now a waste as she was met with the grim reality that it wasn't possible to fight off insanity and crime using the law, using fairness and honesty as well as honor. These mammals had no honor. She should've finished him when he was on the ground. Her thoughts were now ones of hatred and it was scarier than what was actually going to happen in a few moments.

But she wasn't going to stop fighting, not at all, she was going to do whatever it took to make his wish more impossible and hard to achieve thus she dug her claws into his paw but he didn't even flinch and just as she was to try and push her feet on the ground and try and tackle him, a familiar and hope-filling shout managed to stop her as well as the mammal that was mere seconds ago going to try and take something very precious from her.

"Bruno! WHAT THE FUCK?" Her eyes quickly caught the red mammal who was in a stance of readiness just after the corner she had been caught spying behind. His hackles were raised and his teeth were bared while his claws were extended for action, he looked pretty wild but what was he thinking? There were four mammals, one of them being too big for him to be even capable of doing something and he didn't even have any training. Yet there he was, attempting to save her skin, it made her glistering lilacs to quiver in hope.

"Nickson?" the maned wolf said and dropped the bunny that he was just holding which was her queue to try and run but she was met with a harsh push and she ended at the spot from where she was dragged from, close to the disgusting pig that was staring at her with literal curious hunger in his reddened eyes. She wanted to get out of there.

"What're you doing to my bunny?!" Nick angrily shouted and began walking towards Judy without even bothering to keep his distance from the murderous mammals.

"What the fuck're yo—" The maned wolf sniffed a few more times and Judy's direction and then at Nick's. "Was wonderin' why she stinks of fox, ya'disgusting pervertion!" Bruno snickered and was joined in by the seal who was now chewing on a piece of a cooked foot from the elk while the bear didn't even appear to care to wake up. Her eyes weren't leaving her only chance of escape and she was so baffled how he wasn't getting agitated by what was happening. Was this something normal for him or was he keeping a mask on? And had he just said his bunny? That sounded somehow… right? It sounded possessive but she had felt the same about him as well. Or was he just in his hustling persona now?

Nick didn't bother answering as he got in front of Judy and helped her to get on both her feet and she wanted to hug him there and now because of her want of his warmth and scent. Just as she was to do that with teary eyes because of her emotional instability, he pushed his claw into her chest and she hit the wall behind her.

"What did I tell you? You don't go out of my sights you idiotic muncher. You're mine!" he growled and his bared teeth were so close to her throat, so close that the sharpness could already be felt on her skin. The push wasn't very harsh but it had wounded her heart, the words, twisted it. Her brain was unable to understand why he had just said that because dizziness was still present in large quantities and it was so confusing, yet she remained silent and stood still with a madly twitching nose.

"Let's go," he ordered and just as he was to grab her paw and lead her on, the maned wolf got in front of him and her and crossed both his paws to which Nick didn't even flinch.

"Finders keepers, Nickson. Now she's mine," Judy could see where this was going and she feared the worst for Nick because he may not have a clue that the mammal in front of him had a gun.

"She's claimed asshole!" Nick growled and moved closer to the slightly taller predator.

"I don't give-a shit, mamm." The reaction got Nick surprised and he even scoffed in disbelief.

"After what I did for you? You're going to do this now of all times?" Nick asked with raised eyebrows and with opened palms.

The taller predator sighed and looked elsewhere, seeming kinda brought down by Nick's words. "That'as nothin' to-do with this."

"You owe me a favor god dammit!" The maned wolf's mouth opened as he was to say something but then it closed and it seemed that Nick had managed to get to him and if not, she was going to deliver such a brutal kick from behind him that his balls would probably glue themselves to his body, that was for sure on her part but she put her trust in the reynard who she believed in, who she confined in.

"What 'bout it?"

"If you let her go, unharmed, I'll forget about it and we'll be square, Bruno, 'kay?" The maned wolf seemed to be in thought and in between his visible contemplations, he eyed the mammals around him and did a motion with his head that didn't speak much to Judy. But then he took a step to the side and motioned to the doe to move which she did quickly and that made the elephant seal to roar angrily but he was silenced by the raised paw of the taller predator after which he smirked somehow mischievously.

"Okay'ya cheeky preyo. I'll let'er go," he began and extended his paw towards Nick who hesitantly looked at him but slowly smiled and reached to grab it for a shake. "Ya'have my word…" but the shake wasn't ending and the bloodied predator's smirk was getting out of control. Nick visibly tried to get out of his grasp but it wasn't working which managed to lower his ears and hackles to raise yet again.

"Not'ya tho…" the maned wolf concluded and barked.

"Carrots, run!" Nick yelled and tried to hit Bruno but the pig jumped from the crate and toppled the reynard to the ground and she was speechless, she couldn't even scream but she had a clear path to escape, to survive. Her heart was breaking apart at the thought of leaving him at the paws of those murderers but there wasn't any other way if she was to survive and there was no time because the bear had woken up and was outright growling at her which meant she had to run, immediately.

With tears on her cheeks and agony glued on her back, she sprinted from hence she came even if it was excruciatingly painful for her body that had been abused but she was fast and managed to go through the chain link doorway and towards the dark corridor. Her heart had fallen into her stomach and she was breaking apart with every step taken because she wanted to do nothing more but to try and fight for him, for the fox who saved her from certain doom as well as physical and emotional abuse that was to definitely happen.

Her legs gave away and she stumbled on the threshold of the corridor, thus hitting her chin and grinding it till her body came to a stop. Why was everything trying to hurt or kill her, why wasn't there anyone who was trying to hug her or comfort her, why… The bear's steps were becoming louder and louder and she had to stand up… or else.

Weakly but surely, she got on her legs and resumed her exhausted sprint but just before she was to escape through the exit where there was the almost fallen door, it closed suddenly and abyssal darkness fell upon the small room. She bashed the door with her feet and paws but it wasn't budging and her chest was with an unhealthy rhythm like never before. Never before had she been so scared in her life, never before had she been so tense and breathless as well as desperate.

She felt sick and helpless. There was no way out, she couldn't see nor fight, she couldn't run nor struggle. It was as if she was a trapped animal, and what did a trapped animal do when cornered? It either fought or submitted. Thus she got into the corner and tried to hide herself under her ears, paws and legs. She wished that this was just a horrible dream that it was just hard to wake up from and when she would, Nick would be on her side so she could tell him everything that had happened, she begged for such luck to happen but the coldness around her as well as pain was telling her that nothing as such was going to appear true. Her mind was screaming at her to continue her struggle but her exhausted body was persevering.

The steps stopped some distance away from her and she grit her teeth for rough treatment but nothing happened for some moments until she heard a sharp whistling sound and the door next to her scrunched metallically and fell on the ground as the hinge had given away. She quickly looked at the pouring light and saw a yellowish mammal with black spots enter and look at her in disdain, she was a cheetah, a very slim and disinterested one.

"What's this?" the cheetah asked with a very strict voice but with perfect speech which meant that she wasn't from the slums of Happytown.

"Was Bruno friend property," the bear boomed and chuckled.

"Why's she still breathing?" the cheetah asked calmly and coldly.

"He say even mammal like us have to honor word. Sound stupid to me but… He say take to grinder," the bear concluded and took his leave with loud burps.

"Fuck's sake…" the female predator groaned while Judy tried to sneak past her unseen, but the predator grabbed her by the ears and bashed her head into the wall that was next to her, a hit that managed to daze her further and her vision began blacking, she was losing her ability to stay awake at last. She could've fought it but what was the point, battered and exhausted, she was just an almost lifeless body that was keeping itself alive who knows how, it was so fruitfully hurtful and she wanted rest, she wanted the pain to stop pulsating inside her brain and spine.

Just before she got lost in forced unconsciousness, she mumbled something under her weak breath, "M-m-mum"

And then darkness came with its reign and took her eyes in its bane.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

\- This chapter I don't like, nor the next one or the next one after that… But! Well fuck… Addition made in Chapter 7, when Judy talks with Brad.

\- So I watched this film called _"_ _Seven Psychopaths_ _"_ and I fell in love with it because it was just incredibly well-written, especially the characters. I loved "The Queaker" story so much, especially with the soundtrack below. It just gave me those chills…

\- **Music while writing:** _The Quaker - Carter Burwell_

\- **Latest edit:**

\- **Tumblr:** _markovas_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_


	28. Perverted Justice

**Perverted Justice**

* * *

Judy woke up with a hard gasp because of the breathlessness she was greatly feeling, which got her to groan weakly while her head crawled in muddling from the rough treatment she had to endure through. There were these muffled sounds of gears grinding into one another as well as the electric buzzing of something she couldn't place a word upon, while something clanked and screeched all around her with distant yells coming from somewhere above. She dared to open her eyes but then the light blinded her to which her instinctive reaction was to cover those said eyes, yet her paws weren't reaching them as if they weren't on her body which got her to squirm from forced ignorance. That was when she felt her paws to lightly tingle, a very weak and anemic sensation, a sensation of them being trapped which was even felt around her ankles, while pressure was being sensed around her middle where warmth was present. Why and what?

Her head slightly angled itself and Judy saw the same cheetah from the dark alley who was just standing still without even caring to look down at her while the surroundings became noticed in the form of a rusty metal box that had a chain fence in front, a fence behind which solid cement was visible but it was definitely in motion. She was feeling descent as that tingling in her stomach became known to her dizzy brain and got her to shiver instinctively while the pain from the fight got her to wince and hiss which closed her eyes as she groaned tightly. The pain spread like an infected wound around her backside and pressured her chest inwards to which the tightness almost felt unbearable.

A very harsh crash around the box of metal as well as a long metallic screech got her to widely open her eyes with pants but she couldn't see that same concrete material anymore behind the fence but jagged rocks that carried different kinds of minerals in them, rocks that had a black shell and alike-probable core, some of them smooth, others pretty pointy and uneven. Quiet chatter began behind her and she wanted to move herself so she could skim the mammals, but in that moment she felt drowsy as her brain's throbbing came back searingly with her pulse becoming a bit weaker and even as she tried to force herself to stay awake, her head fell and hung in the air lifelessly while the machinery noises continued with that same rhythm and disinterest of the world around them.

What a world…

There was this dripping noise but it was not like any other. This one's rhythm was perfect and it was as if it was engineered that way, an endless perfection of symphony or probably a broken pipe? Who knew what that liquid carried or where it was coming from, who knew why it was spilling there and not somewhere else, which didn't carry a problem, yet it did because its attributes were unknown, they were mysteriously undiscovered in the form of disinterest. Such a simple thing overlooked and forgotten with the allowance of it echoing around the area of space which bounced its song willingly and without question, hell it didn't have a vote to that, it usually didn't have anything.

The dripping and blopping became more distant and distant and Judy pursed her lips as her tongue got out and traced the rough and dry surface which succeeded and getting them to leak her precious fuel that was her blood, blood that spread around her pink tongue and instantly pushed the alarms in her brain which began waking her up. The liquid didn't feel too off tho, it was warm but not tasty, yet its dampness around her lips slightly reduced her problematic situation. Judy felt herself rejoining the sensations of her body yet again and as she opened her eyes, it was a pitch dark place which was definitely moving, strangely enough. The walls around her had morphed with the form of her body and were feeling rather coarse and constricting with her restraints now even being tighter around her limbs which was even painful, at least she could still feel them.

There was an idea of what was happening but her head couldn't comprehend that because it was still aching and pulsing but not as bad as when she was thrown against the dumpster, now the pain was less of an issue even if it was present within and around her body, pain that she endured with gritted teeth and iron will. She squirmed inside her unknown prison and whimpered in desperation but the only sounds she could register were those of her breathing and light footsteps as well as some kind of wind that was echoing around her. It was a strange kind of eerie echo which was like a low whistle which got her to shiver as if it had brushed her fur while another strange sound became known to her surroundings, it was the symphony of something distant, something like a heavy machine with many parts which was working on full momentum. But those were just guesses.

Wanting to know what was going on managed to push in her throat and she mumbled very lowly and weakly, "H-h-hello… W-w-what's g-going on?" But there was nothing, just more of the same and she wanted to hug herself because the vulnerability was too much, yet she couldn't move her paws as they were behind her and she was just going to tearly whimper if it wasn't for the creaking of hinges and the sound of a metal bashing against something solid. The surroundings rustled around her and grinded into her fur so much that she felt itching on the surface of her skin which made her to lightly groan in dissatisfaction but the pain managed to stifle that annoying sensation quite quickly.

The constricted space then swooshed quickly and she felt as if she was in a free fall, shortly after her rump hit something sharp and solid which got her to grunt painfully but then the top of the small space opened, and weak but protruding light poured in that blinded her moist lilacs but it didn't end there as someone grabbed her ears and pulled her out of what she still wasn't sure she was in. She shrieked in agony because being pulled by her ears was something incredibly painful because the feeling was as if they were going to tear from her head from the base but the mammal that was doing this to her dropped her on the ground, to her luck, thus with closed eyes she tried to worm away from her torturer.

The ground was cold and somewhat crude as well as uncomfortable and it smelled very damp as well as suffocating but she was glad that she was out of that thing, that small prison of breathlessness. Because she wanted to know where she was, her eyes opened as she whimpered again with a heavy exhale and looked at the mammal who she couldn't recognize right away due to the blurriness in her vison but it quickly fixated upon the figure, and she recognized it as the female cheetah who knocked her out before she fell into unconsciousness. She was so slim and even looked rather harmless yet her face spoke volumes of what she had gone through, a face filled with coldness and visible anger.

Judy noticed her previous prison she was in which was a brown sack that the cheetah collected and put on her back while the background to the doe became clear, she was in some kind of room which was visibly dug into a rock, the only thing made of concrete being that of the doorframe from where she had been forcibly carried. The hallway behind the widely-opened door consisted again of that same and lifeless concrete with cracks all around it as well as some black cables that were hanging from the ceiling as well as lightly moving around. She was underground who knows where, she needed to know.

"W-where am I?" Judy quietly asked the female in front of her who was going through some of her pockets on her pants.

The cheetah remained unresponsive till she pulled out a cigarette, and just before lighting it up, she answered gloomily with a very short glance, "Doesn't matter..." Judy for a moment saw the cheetah's expression to soften but as the feline inhaled, her face scrunched in hardness with a very strained exhale following by and she turned around instantly, her tail hitting the wall that used to be on her side, after which she exited the deformed room by crashing the door into the frame and locking it, after which she stomped off and left Judy to herself and her unknown future.

Judy fell on her side and stared at the obsidian-looking surface that was so uneven and pointy. She didn't have a clue where she was but what she knew was that she was in irreversible trouble and from the mammal's words, she probably was going to be killed for who knows what. And that made her chest tight, her eyes unstable and her throat cramped. She was so cold, so hurting and yet more and more seemed to happen without pause which got her at last to begin sobbing quietly with herself as the dam of pressure just became too much yet again, the loneliness persevering and filling her heart with doubt as well as futile despair.

Everything had happened so quickly and without notice, it was like she wasn't allowed a moments rest. The day was showing so much promise and she had made such great progress with Nick as well as having experienced exhilaration and wonder until the illusion of happiness was yet again broken by the grim reality of the real world. If they hadn't went to Happytown maybe they would be together right now, in each other's warm embrace and scent, in each other's paws and company, something that sounded and seemed so distant and impossible as well as incredibly dreamy. The clarity slapped her heart so ruthlessly that she lost her breath and began squirming as hard as she could.

The bindings weren't budging and the more she tried, the less energy she had to continue until she couldn't do it anymore and plopped her head into the awful and uneven ground. Her eyes began quivering and she didn't have control over her emotions as they flooded her body overwhelmingly but that angered her because of her weakness and she tried to stand up which resulted in her just rolling around the cold floor until her head got dizzy enough for her to stop. The bitterness around her mouth was starting to get to her and her lips were cracking even more, even if she didn't want to focus attention on herself, the lack of someone to talk to, the loneliness and fear just overtook her mind.

"Hello! Can I have some… water?!" Judy shouted and aimed her eyes at the steel door which's dents and deformities were now visible on closer scrutinization. Silence was thrown at her in response and she tried again even more desperately, this time yelling with all her voice until she gurgled and quit. There was this strange exhaustion that got her to stop doing anything and she just lay there on the middle of the floor for who knows how long, but in the process, she began talking to herself without any consistency until her mind snapped because she was furious at the situation she had let herself fall in, at her mistakes and disabilities of reading her surroundings.

She talked, she rolled around, she shrieked but nothing was helping, nothing was happening or being heard, just that same eerie wind, her whimpers, and fears inside her mind. At least there was light inside that misshaped room that came from the loosely hanging light bulb attached to the bumpy ceiling where visible water was snaking down the rock, yet she hadn't noticed that crucial detail. But there was something else around the moutanious ceiling, there were very dark webs with quite the meaty spiders there which were playing with their pincers while looking at Judy, who when she saw them shivered and began imagining them on her which got her instinctively to recoil away.

The ropes that binded her were thick and even as she tried, they weren't going to fall off even as she attempted to loosen them, the only effect was that of getting them tighter and blocking her veins of blood which was making her limbs go rigider and colder, thus she rested her head onto the foul rock and tried to regain some of her expended strength with hard pants and severe headaches. She had strained her body so much in her attempts of escape that she had even injured herself and had made her position even worse than it already was.

Her mind took her to the memories of when she and Nick were at that scraper and were overlooking the whole of Zootopia, the magnificent bedrooms that she had visited as well as bathrooms. The incredible sights and warm clothing. The intimate cave and heart-melting affection. But then came those of Happytown and the desecrated elk that had been disfigured by those blood-hungry beasts who had hurt her so much that her back stung and she whimpered in a moment of extreme agony just from the memory of when she had lost her breath from the harsh throw.

How could someone do that to another living being? Why would someone want to do that? Because they just enjoyed eating meat?! That was preposterous and such thinking was filled with mental instabilities and delusions. But even if she felt like that, the fact wasn't going to change that she had witnessed the consumption of mammal meat as well as the butchery of a recently-killed mammal, but despite her experience with death, her stomach couldn't hold its contents anymore and she released them in front of her which got her to feel the acid in her throat and mouth, acid that was so repulsing, so uncomfortable, so unwelcomed…

Her stomach's juices managed to trickle towards her and soak into her fur and clothes because of the elevation of the ground. That disgusted her but she was unable to do anything about it but tremble and despair in her miserable state which wasn't just on a physical but as well as psychological foundation. She couldn't get the images of the elk's open skull out of her head, images that were making her own head to itch and her mind to think that there was that same hole in there as well, after which her insanity increased and she thought that something was crawling around her back.

That was when she imagined the big spiders as if they wanted to consume her, prey entangled and captured, a ready feast right for the taking. She shrieked and wormed away from the wall while looking behind her with pacing eyes and pumping heart. The place was getting her paranoid and she wanted to get out of her restraints because her limbs were hurting so damn much while being so cold and unresponsive… She tried to get herself in rails by forcing her breathing into a rhythm and closing off her memories as to not flood her with more fear and despair. It took her some time to steady herself and even if she was feeling like shit, her mental vulnerability managed to cool itself down even if she was imagining movement around her back.

That was when something was for sure beginning to crawl onto her and she saw a cockroach as big as half her paw trying to burrow itself under her fur which was met with queasiness and daunting fear that got her to shake violently as to try and chase the overgrown insect that got the message and fell off of her after some failed attempts from Judy's side. Was she food for these mammal's pets? Why were these insects so big, this wasn't normal! What else was going to try and get on her, what more was hiding in the corners of the cavernous room. She actually preferred not to know and just begged for no more curious cockroaches, which probably wasn't going to be the case as she noticed a few who were calmly looking at her, the only thing moving being their long antenas… It made her gulp hard and feel a violent shiver, to which she moved closer to the light as she knew that they didn't enjoy it much and stood away from it.

She was in a situation where it was either death or life and she wasn't content on being turned into mince or a lifeless corpse. She was still so young and was capable of doing so much. She hadn't worked on herself so much just to be stomped and thrown in the trash, that was out of the question even if she wanted to just quit at that very moment. That idea was beautiful but there was always this problem that was part of her, it was welded into her foundations of who she was and that was that she just didn't know when to quit.

Yes.

Her eyes moved around the disfigured room and when they got to the floor yet again, her mind instantly forged an idea. If she grinded her ropes into the pointy rocks, she could sever them even if it would take quite some time. It was better than just laying and grieving, it was something, it was hope. With a painful grunt, she squirmed her way to one of the visible sharper edges and positioned the ropes above that surface of probable freedom.

The slow process began and the grinding was starting to tear the fibers of the thick rope around her wrists, indication that meant that it would be a very long night or day for which she wasn't sure that she had time, yet even if her wrists' veins tried to pump warm blood into her limbs, which was creating a suffocating itch around the area of clogging, she wasn't stopping, her instincts were on overdrive and she wanted to get out or least have a chance to properly defend herself even if it would be against that elephant seal. She'd rather fight to the death than be mistreated further.

At some point throughout time she decided to take a small break because her body was so stiff and exhausted, her mind was swimming in dizziness and her belly was growling in want of food. Her tongue was bitter from the fluids of her insides while there was this present dryness that was making her to purse her lips in the subconscious reaction to the need of water, of rejuvenation. There was such close to the walls and every drop that fell from the ceiling was making her wince but she needed to cut herself free first, her dissatisfaction was only in the way to her door to freedom.

Just as she was to begin pitying herself from the helplessness she put herself in, her ears sprung into motion as they detected footsteps coming closer to the metal door and they stopped just in front with the sound of arguing coming forth. She was to yell for help if she hadn't caught herself that her position was one of limited time and the less they remembered that she was in there the better because the ropes weren't even cut halfway through.

"I don't fuckety give a shit what it fuckingly takes! Take them to the fucking pit you fuck of a fuck!" yelled a very deep voice that sounded so sharp and smelting but it was unknown as she hadn't ever heard it in her life.

"He bite me, boss. I beat him but he bite again!" complained the other mammal in response and that voice was now familiar because of the way that the words were carried with a somewhat broken zootopian accent.

There was this low growl that echoed around outside with words being carried with it, "Then fucking muzzle him you handicapped-retarded pile of shit!"

"Handi-wha… What's a muzzle, boss?!"

The light growl became loud and a very hard slam followed against the steel door that managed to get her to flinch and shrink her heart further as well as get her to squirm away a little because she feared that the angry mammal would come in and take it on her, thoughts that were created from her recent bad experience. "GET-them there!"-the angry mammal hissed-"if you don't, I'll make fucking-sure your grody fat ass takes their fucking places. Was I clear, Misha?"

The mammal on the other side was silent for a mere moment until he responded in panic as well as squeakiness, "Yes, boss!" and stormed off with heavy steps into the unknown while the presence of the mammal with the deep voice was still being sensed as she could faintly hear his harder breathing as well as claws tapping the floor in a rhythm that actually carried a sort of tone until the trance was broken again after some silence with the ghastly ambience.

"Fucking fuckity-fuck. So fuckingly fucking incompetent…" The mammal with the smelting voice mumbled to himself and just as he began walking off, he stopped and shouted with annoyance, "Spots, come here." Judy's curiosity got the better of her and managed to push her to roll closer to the door so she could overhear the conversation better because the more she knew, the better were her chances of survival which essentially was her priority at that forsaken place of captivity.

"Yes?" returned a feminine voice that sounded a lot like the female cheetah that had carried her to the hellhole she was currently in. But the answer wasn't carried with coldness and apathy but with hints of sweetness and warmth, why was that so and who was this mammal that carried such authority around himself?

"I need you to see what you can find about a certain vixen. She has been asking too many fucking questions of late and I don't fucking like that shit. Clip her wings if needed," his voice became lower and Judy had to strain her ears to the limit. "Get some muscle for the meeting because I don't fucking want any problems with those fuckers from above. I don't know if Rez is going to come as you know that he is a little bitch and won't show his face to the likes of us. Afraid to be seen with _us_ , I'll fuckin—"

"Hey, he has his reasons," the feline stopped the male from continuing and there was this stirring of cloth that came from under the door's crevices but nothing followed but deafness which loomed over the surroundings for some moments until the female finished, "I'm on it." And with that the conversation stopped, while the corridor received steps that moved in both directions until there were no more and Judy was again drowned in loneliness and the sounds of fear but now she had something to gnaw upon as what was said managed to get her guessing and thinking. The bear was bitten and there was the possibility of the mammal having been Nick because that was most probable, not certain but probable and that was all she needed, because even if it was scarce, it was enough to calm her heart from giving her a squeezing death.

He could still be alive but where was he being taken and did he know where she was and if she was okay? Well, she wasn't okay as her situation couldn't even be compared with that at the academy where she was met with prejudice and excruciating hardships which were created by the hard training and overconfident bullies. But this, this wasn't training but torturous nastiness. She was never bound or treated like that. Yes, her sparing matches weren't fun with the bruises and knock downs that were put upon her but it was voluntary, it was on her own will, unlike now. There was no starvation or dehydration, no cockroaches and wicked air, no spiders and rough bedding, no binds…

The rest of the conversation didn't make any sense to her but what did was that there was going to be some sort of meeting between who knows who but she wasn't interested in that, not when her life was at stake as well as Nick's. But in order to succeed in helping him, she needed to help herself and that seemed like a rather hard thing to do as her body was becoming limp and her brain was starting to infect her cells with sleep, sleep she had deprived herself for a long time, time that came and went but there was not even the slightest idea of its number, there was nothing but coldness and mudding disorientation which was like a disease that festered and left rot in its trail.

Instant pressure was felt in her eyes and her mouth quivered in anxiety which tried to push her to continue her painful journey of escape.

It was a journey that had taken her strength and her already-dizzy head was beginning to drown in fatigue.

Her eyes were starting to become heavier with the burden of captivity.

Her muscles were losing their past strength.

Her mind wanted one thing.

Solace.

* * *

 _Something was touching her around her arms, or was it crawling? She didn't know but because of the utter exhaustion she was in, the instinctive need to open her eyes and spot the threat was stomped and thrown into the gutter but the strange thing happened and she actually felt relaxation around her paws and spreading warmth which tingled a lot but not enough to get her to open the shutters at last. The want of this rest to never end was great and infectious for her mind which wasn't letting her to exit her non-existent lucidity. That would've been something troubling for her if she was awake. But she wasn't._

 _That what we crave for tho, it never lasts forever as something wet fell right on the flesh of her pink nose which grumbled in irritation and got her to sneeze because of the breath she took sharply. That was the turning point which managed to pull her from the well of darkness and get her blurry vision to try and refocus while she pushed herself to a sitting position and brushed her nose off the moisture. Wait, how did she sit up? Her paws didn't feel restricted, they were in front of her. Her heart began hammering hard and fueled her resolve to use the opportunity or at least understand what was happening._

 _Her paws were in front of her face and they were free with the visible outlines of the rope that had been around her wrists but there was no blood or bruises which was incredibly odd, it was kinda surreal but she didn't have the time to muse about it as she detected a very familiar scent which tugged the strings of her heart and got her to look around which's result was her spotting a red fox that was in between the frame of the steel door that had been widely opened while he looked at her with crossed arms and a very disappointed frown._

 _"Niick!" she shouted a bit roughly as her eyes couldn't believe it nor did her mind yet there he was, in the flesh and fur but why wasn't he responding to her, why was he looking at her with such disdain and anger? But then he scoffed hard as he turned around and began leaving the room which made her to yell, "Stop! Wait! I don't understand!?" Her feet tried to get her up so she could chase him and find out what was going on but she tripped and almost fell on her face if it were not for her free paws. Her legs were still bound and with a desperate groan, she began trying to untie the tight knots around her ankles with a spread of panic inside of her._

 _Why had Nick just done that? Had he freed her paws? No one else could've but why was he mad at her and had left?! How could he do that to her! Her eyes squeezed shut as she fought of the tears that were harvested from her exasperation of the heart but then she felt the tie around her ankles to loosen and with a finishing move she freed herself from the grasp of madness. The searing tingling entered her limbs and she tried to stand up foolishly and chase after her fox but her legs buckled and she fell, yet that didn't stop her as she tried and tried again until she saw no other way but to crawl on her knees and paws._

 _The suffocating air was everywhere but as she neared the open door and brighter light from the corridor, it became bearable as now it wasn't tickling the insides of her lungs. The corridor was long, both directions and it even seemed endless which was baffling but she could see barely visible pawprints on the dusty concrete floor and resumed her slow chase that was so because of her disabilities of standing tall. The strange part about that corridor was that there was nothing around the enclosed space but the lone lamps that stood in the middle of the ceiling. Where were the cables, piping or anything, at least some kind of trash. Why was it so bland an uninhabited while it looked so big and endless, it was chilling her core and the lack of sight of her fox was maddening her to such an extent that she was now trying to get on her feet._

 _Surprisingly, they listened to her and even if she strained herself, she managed to get on them and with the support of the wall, she continued to walk down the empty corridor with doors on both sides of the walls which seemed untouched and as when she tried to open some of them, they just scrunched from the pressure but forbid her from entering. How had he entered the place and where were the other mammals? Why was the place abandoned and for how long had she lay there in that morbid place of desolation. More importantly, why had he left her when she needed him most?!_

 _Whimpers gurgled inside her throat but she didn't quit, she couldn't even if the drive to go back into that room and just curl into herself was strong. Now was her chance for escape and Nick was somewhere around the place which meant that she could easily achieve what she had promised herself when she had fallen asleep. Her ridiculous thoughts of madness made her to lightly chuckle to herself but the momentary happiness was squashed like an annoying insect as concern that she may never find him scourged her body and pushed her to move faster._

 _That was when the last drop of rationality left her as she had trailed around the endless straight corridor for so much that she wasn't able to think clearly and began yelling his name which echoed like a sharp reminder of how she had lost him, of how she had lost herself, of her failure. That made her to continue yelling his name but all she received as a response was that haunting wind which was brushing the fur on her head while it moved on its course, that being into the distant unknown._

 _When the last drop of hope was to be lost into oblivion, her eyes at last spotted a slightly opened door which was surprisingly from wood and had beautiful ornaments of flowers and leaves around its body but she couldn't appreciate that and crept quietly inside where there was this void of black with a small light coming from somewhere deeper where that void was being disturbed._

 _But the moment she entered inside, there was this aroma that was far too familiar to her tastes and memories, it was the smell of burnt flesh which feasted on her emotions and got her to feel nausea which would've got her to spill it all out if she wasn't running on her reserves and emptiness. Her eyes stung and for a moment she thought of backtracking but wind blew against her and the door crashed into the frame which made her ears to jump and her to try and pull the knob as to open the wooden construct but there was no knob, just the rough wood that shouldn't have been as such because of the pristine side she had seen in front, yet there it was, she could feel it and there was this grittiness as particles fell on the floor which was as cold as ice._

 _That was it, the only way forwards was actually forward and there was no turning back no matter what lay ahead, no matter how the sharp and mortifying the smell was, she had to put her feet in front of herself and reach that weak light no matter how much she wanted not to do so. She hugged herself and did so with a slumped body as if she was trying to appear as small as possible for a nameless reason. The smell was turning her to the past and was starting to get her to picture another face under that blanket and that face was of a disfigured red fox who lacked fur and eyes. The flesh was dark and seemed to be falling off of him and that got her to sob from fear of the possible inevitable._

 _She didn't want to experience that ever again but why was it present in this monstrous place, only she and him knew about it, she hadn't told anyone else. As the light started coming closer to her eyes that was when the subtle whispers began coming from around her which now got her to widely open her eyes and start looking around herself frantically while shivers overtook her. This wasn't normal, was she going insane or was this happening for real? Maybe it was happening for real because her psyche had broken apart like an overused and pushed to the limits car. With low groans, her legs began carrying her faster but with each step taken, the chanting as well as discordant whispering was becoming louder and louder which now was bringing back her headaches and ringing to which she responded with a full-on sprint._

 _There wasn't even the slightest care if she would trip on something or fall down a set of stairs, the noise was provoking her basic instincts of survival and the darkness was just too much, her eyes craved light and vision, her heart something else. It seemed that the light was coming from the crevice of another door against which she collided her paws into as she tried to find a handle that was actually present, thank carrots for that. It flew open and she was blinded by the room's light that wasn't that strong but strong enough to get her orbs blurred as she entered and closed off the smell of death and sounds of madness._

 _But when she saw who was in the room, she actually preferred to go back because she couldn't take the image nor the reality that wanted to force itself in her. There stood Nick, tied to a chair with his head hanging back and his tongue out with a lot of blood having flown down that said head and around his stained cream fur. His shirt was in tatters and what was around his belly got her to clench her heart with both paws while her eyes filled with tears of grief and disappointment of her failure. There was an uneven and zaggy line which ended with the violator in the form of a knife at the end of the massive wound from which his guts had spewed in between his legs._

 _It was a bloody mess and was disgusting because his previously-pristine fur was now ruined while his skin could no longer keep his insides in and had spat them out. Maybe he was still alive, maybe she could fix him but then she remembered the blood from his head and realized that the worst had happened. But what she hadn't seen was the figure of the mammal that was hiding in the shadows as it stepped forth and just stared at the maimed fox. Her eyes instantly zeroed on the mammal and immediately made the connection of who that was. It was Bruno the maned wolf and he was with those same clothes and past-white shirt which was now even bloodier. It was fully red, as if it was dyed entirely._

 _He turned to look at her with a psychotic grin while his paw held onto that same old pawgun. His head tilted to the side and that was when her face scrunched in maddening lust for revenge which broke her apart as she was to stand up and charge the wicked mammal who had taken someone precious from her but that was when the unthinkable happened and got her to freeze. Nick's eyes had squinted on hers, and he had arched himself forward as much as the ropes let him to do so. But his eyes weren't those warm emeralds she could remember but a lifeless and muddled white which was pushing her rationality to the limits because this was impossible, yet she could see and feel everything so colorfully, so unwillingly._

 _That was when more fresh blood came from the bullet hole in his head and pushed around the hairs of his fur until it reached one of his dead eyes and filled the sides with the iron-smelling life-keeping fuel. His lips curled into rage and his growls weren't natural as they sounded like as if they were coming from a monster and not a mammal, not her fox._

 _"You did this…" he sneered as saliva began falling from his mouth and onto his guts that were still sprawled in between his legs._

 _The accusation robbed her of her energy and made her to sit on the warmth-stealing ground as she stared at him with tears freely flowing down her cheeks while she tried to formulate a simple answer. "Wh— I don— Nick… I do—"_

 _"You never listened to me! You got me in this mess and you'll pay for it!" he snapped his snout so hard that the move got the knife to slash further into him and fall from his stomach and onto the solid surface where it clanked, while Bruno swayed the gun at Judy's direction, and began laughing with all his breath as if this was amusing him, as if what he had done was the most fulfilling thing in the world, as if her misery was the prize for his happiness._

 _But what Nick had said and his lifeless stare had gotten to her too hard and she tried to shrink herself as much as it was possible because she knew that there was truth to that. If she had pushed him away and had just walked away, nothing of this would've happened and her life wouldn't have been so hard, so painful. Maybe she would've still been a police officer if she had listened to his advice but no, she had chosen her path and now he was dead, gone, ruined. She couldn't answer, there was nothing to fix what was done and the pressure was killing her from the inside out as the breathlessness from her pacing heart was too much as well as the twisting inside her stomach. The maned wolf's maniacal laughter was filling her ears with poison while Nick's unrelenting staring was like a bombardment of malice._

 _"P-plea-s-se… I d— s-st-o-op…" Her paws went for her ears and her head to her knees as she tried to appear as small as possible while trying to find anything to fill the gaping hole inside of her that was starting to dissolve everything in its surroundings. The laughter was so hard and nasty, so abominable and misplaced, it was excruciating for her and she could feel the drilling gaze of her precious mammal and friend. Nothing made sense but even so, it was making too much sense for her which began pulling the roots of her foundations and beliefs as her mind battled with the agony of grief and madness._

 _That was when Nick's eyes finally closed and his head slumped forward which got the chair disbalanced and he fell with a loud thud on the floor with his insides around him and that attracted her attention while in her muddled thinking. That was when she saw the reaction of the maned wolf who grabbed his stomach and jeered as hard as he could while tears of joy fell from his gross eyes, eyes of a killer, eyes of a murderer._

 _A loud bang came for the dark part of the room and clipped the side of Bruno's neck which he grabbed as blood began pulsating out around him. His gun aimed at the darkness while he grunted and groaned in pain but then a 2nd shot came and blew off his fingers which got him to drop the gun and squat while yells of anguish formed in his disgruntled throat. The assailant came out from the shadows and Judy immediately recognized who that was, it was her but not the part she embraced because of her beliefs. The dark doe moved close to the moaning predator and without any hesitation put the led through his head to which his body fell on the ground and began forming a puddle of red._

 _Judy was speechless and stared with an open mouth but the cogs in her head had stopped moving entirely, she was empty and could only do one thing, watch. The shadowy doe glared at Judy and then closed the distance angrily until she was just in front of her. That was when the unexpected happened as the dark doe kneeled in front of Judy and stared at her. But the stare wasn't one of anger, disappointment or malice, it was actually warm and understanding which made Judy to close her eyes and push away as she felt it undeserving but then a warm hug embraced her whole and trapped her in her counterpart's arms._

 _"I know, I know… Shhh…" the doe whispered In Judy's ear and caressed the backside of her head. The warmth was entering Judy and the affection was managing to stop that hole from devouring her whole to which she sobbed with strain and embraced the doe as well. No matter how much she lost, she always had herself and that was keeping her from fully losing it right now. "Let me take care of things," the dark doe begged in a sweet voice as she pulled out of the embrace and stared with a smile at Judy who wasn't able to understand at first but when she did, there was incredible doubt. She knew what was wanted of her and that was scaring her whole being as that was going against everything she had fought against._

 _Her troubles were sensed instantly and she felt a warm as well as silky-like paw against her cheek which grabbed her full attention. "Don't be afraid." The doe reassured and closed in for a short kiss which got Judy to feel breathless and even more emotional but she managed to keep herself steady. The kiss filled her with a glowing radiance and that got her to lightly smile but then her paw was pulled from the resting place of her knees and in it was put something cold and rough which got her to look at the invasive perpetrator. It was an old pawgun which she almost dropped if it were not for the shadowy doe's guidance and closeness._

 _Judy looked at her counterpart's eyes and mumbled, "W-w-ha… I don—"_

 _"Embrace me," the doe sweetly interjected and let go of her paw as one snaked around her cheek and rubbed a finger against it for a moment while the bloodshot purple lilacs mooned into Judy's glistering ones. That was when the doe broke the touch and stood up which made Judy to whimper and follow, with her eyes, the doe's steps into the darkness as she glanced one last time at Judy and smiled._

 _Judy's shoulders slumped and she stared at the metallic tool of death which's nostril flared the smell of gunpowder and friction. She knew what she was to do and the reassurance that she had received had pushed her decision into the unthinkable as she was considering of doing what was implied. Her eyes scanned the room one more time and when she saw Nick's mangled corpse, a very angry and final huff exited her mouth and she grabbed the pawgun with her paw and aimed it directly at the side of her temple. The gun's mouth pressed against her skull and she closed her eyes in finality but her paw began shaking while the rest of her body trembled from hesitation of doing something that would leave her in irreversible calamity._

 _She never wanted to resort to this, this would change her and she may never be able to come back which fueled her hesitation further. But the bloodied corpse of Nick or the innocent mammals whose lives were taken from those vile monsters got her thumb to reach the gun's hammer and push it down with tension until it clicked in place. This was it, this was the moment she had dreaded all her life, a moment created from being pushed to thin line of reason and morality. This was the day of reckoning, broken dreams and ideals. She sniffed hard and felt tears that tried to escape her shut eyes. All of her cells were screaming at her to stop at this very instant, to let go of the gun and let it be. They were screaming at her that it wasn't worth it, that everything would fall into place and fix itself. Optimism._

 _But she knew that was a lie. It was a nasty lie! Her eyes opened like thunder and she pressed on the hard trigger which sent the hammer flying into the cartridge but nothing happened, just a hard metallic click which confused her a lot so she tried again without any hesitation present. But the same thing happened, just a click. She checked if there was a bullet in the weapon's nostril and there it was, the shiny piece of death. Quickly, she repeated the motion but received the same response, a jarring and nerve-racking click. A soundly exhale followed as she swiftly fed another bullet in the beast's mouth while the previously-present one was sent flying out and onto the ground._

 _There weren't any thoughts present but only those of getting it over with as she tried again. Despair began again crawling around her as she was met with failure once more. Why was failure following her around like an undesirable scar? Her teeth grinded into one another and she tried to shoot herself time and time again until the gun had no more bullets inside, but in her induced-lunacy, she tried to feed it another heavy led after which it was pointed at her head yet again. But there was nothing but that harsh and irritating click to which she just lost it and began pulling the trigger ferociously as if she were demented. Why wasn't it working, what was wrong with her? Her closed eyes were hurting so much that she couldn't take it anymore and opened them at last while those same clicks became sharper and sharper with the trigger becoming heavier and heavier while her nerves tinglier and tinglier._

Judy was immediately met with a headache that pounded the inside of her skull that got her to groan as she felt stiffness all around her body, especially around her spine, paws and ankles. But there was this jingling and clanking sound that was coming from somewhere around the room but as she tried to get up from the floor, she felt that her paws were bound which confused her a lot. A lot more sensations came to her senses and that got her to understand finally where she was and that the vivid memories were from something else that was separate from reality. That got her to sigh from the feeling of despondency but that annoying sound at last got her to focus her blurry vision and find the initiator that was daring to trouble her in her already troubled state.

She could faintly see a mammal's shape, near one of the walls close to the doorframe, with its back at her. Jingling of what sounded like a belt came from that mammal and rustling of cloth and since her eyesight bettered, she found out that the mammal was a white bunny with black ears. A bunny who was fiddling with something in front of it and it seemed familiar to her, a bit too familiar because the name was as if it was on the tip of her sour tongue. Albeit her unsuccessful tries to remember who that must've been, without seeing their face it was rather impossible for her to say for sure because let's face it, when hit with uncertainty even the certain become engulfed in hesitancy which diminishes their abilities of previous origin.

"Hello?" she quietly tried to grab the bunny's attention which managed to get both its ears to go up and aim at her while its panic-stricken face swooshed towards her and that got her tired eyes to widen in great shock as well as disbelief because she knew that mammal, it wasn't easy to forget that face which had expressed so much hate towards Nick and predators in general. That mammal had brought her mood down that day so much and it had just stuck into her memory like a tumor, but right now, right now he was visibly the only chance of salvation and assistance, still, it bothered her but not enough for her to stop the rush of energy that surged through her.

"J-judy?" the mammal stuttered with a madly twitching nose.

"Brad!" she shouted with a smile and saw him to quickly do something in front of him in obscurity and shortly after to turn to face her with muddlement. He was in black trousers and a white shirt that was almost as white as his fur which was pristine and looked so well-groomed, just like that time at the café where they both separated in bad terms but that was in the recent past and even if she still had that grudge which filled her with animosity towards him, there was his chance to show her that he wasn't who he had appeared to be and to redeem himself in her eyes.

"Sorry… I was— to ch— yes, check something out," he raced through an explanation with nervousness while he caressed one of his ears, an act that she would've found as deceitful if it wasn't her mind-broken position. The buck quickly shortened the distance between them and took a knee in front of her. "Why are you here? What happened?" he asked and tried to push her up but she shouldered his paw away while smiling at him as well as lightly sniffing because of the hope that was given to her to survive, a brisk of joy which hovered all around her like a swarm of flies.

"Saw something I wasn't supposed to… Then they knocked me out and now I'm here… Brad, you must help me! Please!" she shouted in despair and her temporary joy vanished since she remembered that her time was borrowed and that she was asleep for probably a long period which meant that what was feared could come and take her at any given moment, even while the white bunny was with her. He had to get her free.

Brad quickly shushed her down and answered lightly, "Quiet…" His head turned towards the door for a moment. "I'll try to but you must wait. I'm not supposed to be here so I have to go." His dejection was all she needed to see and understand, which made her to try and reach for him so she could stop him from doing what he was to do but she was bounded and the only thing that was a success was her strained groan.

He stood up and began walking towards the door and that clogged her blood with primal and unchecked hopelessness. "Don't, please! They'll kill me…" Her body began trembling under the pressure of her last hope exiting but the buck didn't even turn to reassure her that he was coming back as the door opened and made the suffocating air inside the room to move around from the disturbance. "Wait!" she yelled without care of her presence being remembered anymore but Brad didn't even wince and just carefully closed the steel divider that he locked shortly after. Her face scrunched in daunt and her head plopped onto the freezing floor while her lungs battled with the moist air that was all around her.

Oh how much she wanted to be in the paws on her fox… her fox… huh, that sounded so heartwarming and vitalizing… She remembered how they had played in the warm waters in the belly-fluttering company of each other and then comforting one another as they disclosed secrets from the dark past, building their trust with solid foundations from wanting to progress into something more, something special, something morally repugnant. All that gentleness and affection, all that light touching, hugging and nuzzling. All that kissing and fur grazing against fur… But maybe nature was punishing them for the reason of them wanting more than it had given them… Maybe that was bound to happen and the reason… But it was happening to her and to him way before they knew each other…

And now, now she was covered in her own bitter retch, she was bruised all around her body, she was cold and her limb's nerves were quietly numb as if they weren't there anymore. Her head was aching with every pulse of her heart and her backside was feeling as if grease was boiling all around non-stop. The air was asphyxiating and burning the insides of her lungs while her tongue was like a sour desert. Everything was trying to make her feel awful but at least she couldn't see a chance of things worsening, only her death, for which just the thought made her to resume her efforts to break her bonds, her chains of entrapment.

Out of nowhere, there was this vibration that her ears detected, one that was distant and seemed to be closing in as its intensity was amplifying and the instinctive feeling that something was to happen entered her thinking and separated her from the distasteful reality that she was in. One of her ears sprung up while her nose began twitching for no apparent reason which began bewildering her because she had never experienced such strange sensations. That was when it happened, that sound and feeling of motion as the ground began shaking with pieces of small rocks falling from the ceiling and around the room while her body tried to make her hide from the unexpected calamity that was to fall upon her.

Instinctive fear overtook her which cleared her mind of all the previous issues such as pain and tiredness while her eyes began scanning the whole room, even though she had done that countless times, because of the distorted state she was again pushed into but then the rumbling began fading away and passed with distant yelling coming from the deep unknowns of the corridor behind the steel door. Was this an earthquake or what? Never had she gone through an earthquake in her life. Well she had had gone through one when she was very young, too young to even remember but her older siblings did and had told her about the trembles and devastation it had left in its wrath. But this one, this one wasn't like what she remembered as an explanation or description. It was short and didn't leave destruction in its wake. Nevertheless, it managed to scare her out of her fur.

With that strange issue out of the way which was now stored into her mind for questions in the future, she continued grinding the ropes into the pointy surface as she wasn't going to let her newly-arisen energy go to waste.

Time passed very slowly in the probable coffin she was in, at least she thought it was moving at the speed of a sloth as she couldn't know. It would've been good for her to at least have had a watch but how could've she used it when her paws were tied behind her back. She had lost her sensation of her limbs and there was this frostiness from below her binds which was trying to sneak up her body and that was making her worry, but the major issue she was having was dehydration as her lips were starting to crack hard like droughted soil and bleed from the lack of water inside of her system, which was already running on fumes.

That was when she remembered that behind her, there were small quantities of water flowing slowly and just the idea of putting some in her mouth filled her with drive that she used to roll herself to the rocky base of the wall close to her. Her muzzle glued itself to the rock, which felt gritty, and her dried tongue blanketed the damp surface to which after it made contact, it made her to moan into the incredible sensation of feeling freshness slowly trickle onto her cracking tongue and around her sandy mouth. She didn't know that so much time had passed for her to be in such a state. By the feel and looks of it, it had been quite a lot and she was already very hungry with a constantly rumbling stomach as well as gnawing within that was bringing misery inside her brain because the consistent pain was pushing her to the limits of what she could take, and it wasn't stopping.

After who knows how much time that had passed in her desperate attempt of rejuvenation, she let her tired head to fall to the ground and slapped her lips with a small tired smile because she had managed to help herself with at least one of the major issues that were trying to kill her or make her feel sick. She needed to continue trying to cut her bonds but little progress had been made and tiredness was in too large amounts because she had been at it for hours probably, and the lack of energy was getting to her as her muscles were on fire and joints were just stiff like wood.

What sounded previously like the worst idea now appeared very delightful to her because her eyes were constantly trying to close, besides she was now turned away from the lone light, her body creating shade and darkness in front of her vision, thus a very deep and long yawn poisoned her out-of-sync blood and got her to begin dozing off again into unreasonable rest that was misplaced in a place like that but even as she grimaced in anger at herself for letting herself do this, what else was she to try? If she just slept a bit, she would have the strength to keep on and even if she got out of her bonds, the door was locked and there was no other visible exit.

The only hope she had was Brad delivering on his promise and helping her escape as he even had the keys which got her calming heart to skip a beat and her belly to flutter in hope, in boundless faith. Her ever-present optimism was calming her dread with restraints that were cracking but not enough to sever themselves and let those thoughts of terror roam free. It was giving her some calm and she was grateful for that small fact.

Her eyes finally closed and with a very long exhale, she drifted into unconsciousness that was so peaceful, so welcomed and endorsed, so painless and easeful…

So…

"Judy…" Something was touching her… Could it be those spiders from the ceiling that had salivating mouths?

"Wake up." Something was definitely touching her but it wasn't cold or sticky as it was actually warm in touch… But she was so tired to even want to find out…

"Come on!" With a groan, she opened her eyes sluggishly and blurrily noticed a mammal above her with a paw on her side. She blinked a few times until her eyes managed to focus and saw the image of Brad with a very terrified expression and widely-opened eyes which weren't able to stay in one place.

"Brad!" she shouted but before she could continue her emotional outburst his paws waved erratically in front of her with his face drained of all warmth he could've had, and she understood how stupid she had been just a second ago, thus she whispered regretfully, "Are you going to get me out?"

"… I will but we need to be fast… Let's get your legs free," he told her and motioned for her to roll over on her stomach, which she without thinking, and was now laying on the side of her chin while looking at the shaky rabbit who was now trying to remove the bonds on her legs after which he was going to move onto her unresponsive paws, at least that was what she thought would happen as it made most sense.

It took him a bit but as he worked his way on them, she could feel the pressure to subside and warmness to start entering her veins which at first felt like a very searing burn that shortly after turned into comfortable relief which at last brought responsiveness in her limbs and got her to wiggle her numb toes at last and while Brad worked his magic, her optimism was being brought with full force as now she could see the light at the end of the dark tunnel, now her thoughts began aiming at where Nick could be and was he going to be sent to the so called _pit_. Prospects about him being already dead were banished and locked away as that wasn't an option for her, she refused to accept that unless it was forced in front of her as proof.

As her ties below fell off at last with pinching dancing around her blood-deprived skin, she wiggled herself down as to give him instant access to her paws but instead of feeling his paws to try and remove the restrictions, nothing came from his part but words, words that didn't sound very reasonable to her and even made her feel pressure inside her chest. "I can't."

She looked at him from the corner of her eyes and quickly interjected sourly, "Why not?"

He sighed at her and scratched his neck with an answer that was carried with uneasiness, "Because if they catch us, I can at least tell them that I'm escorting you. If you're free, we're done for."

But she wasn't content on being tied so tight without the means of escape and even if his words sounded reasonable, why was he wanting to keep her like this. She didn't know from what her drive, to have those bounds off her, was coming from. Was it from the fear that her paws could begin rotting or that they were already in the process, or was it something else differently, which she still couldn't place word upon, yet it was present in the form of untrust. "Loosen them then."

"We don't have time, Judy!" he almost shouted in riled agitation that didn't sound right to her ears but he was her only chance and if she blew it, then why did she even struggle. "If you don't trust me, this won't work. Are we doing this or not?" his question was rough and even if she wanted to say no, it appeared that that wasn't going to happen, as she could see his frantic chest which meant that the idea of doing this was terrifying him a lot. He was taking a great risk of helping her out and the least she could do was to trust him even if he didn't deserve her trust after appearing to be a bigot and a short-sighted mammal.

"Okay…" she submitted and tried to get up on her own but her legs shivered from the numbness and still-present cold but just as she was to try again, she felt arms around her shoulders that pulled her up to her knees and then to her feet which got her head to swim in dizziness and her to almost fall to the floor if not for the firm hold of the buck on her side who helped her to get a feel for her limbs and get her slowly walking.

She couldn't believe the state she was in and the vulnerability of her body that was betraying her every step, yet she was getting the hang of it and as blood was flowing in and out fully, she was starting to regain her previous-state, at least a bit. That was reassuring as it meant that damage wasn't done to her appendages, it meant that blight hadn't managed to squirm inside of her with its infectious destruction which got her to feel a bit better. The ropes hadn't been that tight after all, everything was going to be back to normal after her escape, just some more patience.

"Where are we?" she asked the buck who put her to lean close to a wall after they had exited the strange room to which he locked the door. She could see corridors which's walls were from red bricks with iron pipes in different sizes on the ceiling and many cables that were swooshing lightly from that same blood-chilling wind and there was that distant metallic grinding of engines. She pushed herself from the wall and almost fell but her balance kicked in and she succeeded in staying on both her legs, without any help but she didn't have time to cheer as she felt a paw on her back that lightly pushed her forward and that got her to almost stumble but her feet were quick to stop that from happening.

"Under Zootopia," was his quick answer and she could notice his agitated ears that moved all directions which meant that he was extremely on alert, and that was perfectly understandable and would've been the other way around if he wasn't acting as such.

"Where exactly?"

"Nocturnal District." The answer would've made her stop if she wasn't in a weak state of strength thus she followed the guiding paw behind her back but her eyes were glued to the buck's because she had never in her life heard of such a place. It almost sounded made up but she kept her doubts to herself as she expressed them with an innocent tone.

"What's that?" But he only huffed in annoyance which got her already drooped ears to do so further since he was avoiding of telling her anything in her dire need of answers. That was when a very good one came into mind that was linked to her fate, he couldn't deny her that, he couldn't! "What was going to happen to me?" she whispered seriously and stared at him with squinted eyes, eyes that detected frustration in the form of his lips twitching in betrayal. Why was he acting like that?

"What happens to anyone in your position. You get disposed of. Practically," he answered coldly and increased his pace while she contemplated upon the revelations with uneasiness and nagging consternation. She knew it, it was obvious from the cheetah's attitude and words, it was depressing. Why tho, what had she done? Was it because of what had been witnessed, it had to be…

 _I can't think about this now! I need to get these ropes off of me!_

Detest splashed her in the face and got her to squirm because even if she was to be helped, the entrapment was still present as an idea and feeling all around her which was driving her nuts. If he could've just kept feeding her curiosity and not slamming it to the ground… Other thoughts emerged on the topics of what the hell was he doing down there and why had he lied that he was a student. But just as she was to ask while rounding a corner, she was yanked back which pulled her breath out her lungs as she was glued to a wall with Brad covering her mouth with his paws, and she tried to begin mumbling but that was muffled pretty well. Her eyes were widened and aimed at him but his head and ears were at the direction she was just pulled from and in his oaken orbs there was visible trembling.

He finally looked at her seriously and with his free paw motioned her to be quiet and after he removed his paw from her mouth, she released her breath lowly and stayed still. She had to trust him, there was no other way if things were to work out and even if he wasn't who he had claimed to be, it didn't matter right now, right now she had to escape from this piece of hell right under Zootopia.

His mouth moved very close to hers and for a moment she misinterpreted his move and was about to hit him if he hadn't moved away to her ears where he whispered sternly, "Look only at your feet. Do not talk." She didn't have time to respond as he grabbed the space between her elbow and shoulder and pulled her to where they were previously heading. She didn't head his instructions immediately and saw two mammals in the middle of the corridor, one being a lion she thought she had seen somewhere and the other a camel. Both were close to an open door from where the sound of a TV was coming out while the two mammals were arguing about something but stopped as they heard their footsteps and glared at her direction which got her heart to squeeze hard and her quivering eyes to aim at the dusty concrete floor.

He was going to try and walk them in front of everyone's noses, was he insane or outright stupid? Realization of the ludicrous plan made got her to begin shaking but there was not stopping anymore because they had been seen. If he had only loosened those bounds of hers, if only she had tried to make him understand… Why had she allowed herself such a forced decision? She was always one to decide for herself… maybe it was that dream of hers she had had? Images of Nick tried to show in her mind and bring her down but in a last effort she succeeded in pushing them away.

Just as they neared the two bigger mammals, one of them spoke and now she was certain she had seen that lion somewhere. "Wher' think ya goin', little pecker?" To her amazement, the way that was said didn't hold any suspicion but rather amusement due to the mockery in the lion's words that were aimed at Brad which lowered her heartrate and stopped her trembling lower lip, maybe this would work… But what if the lion recognized her, she was wearing a police uniform for carrot's sake! She knew that her fear could be noticed by the scent-sensitive predator but what could she do about that and why actually would that be something odd? She was a damn hostage.

"Moving her to another room for preparations. Orders," the buck answered nonchalantly as they passed just by the two bigger mammals who smelled of cigarettes and alcohol so much that her eyes stung with her nostrils flaring immediately but they passed by and the awful smell remained behind them.

"Hah. 'nother dead rodent. Good bloody riddance," the lion shot back and laughed very harshly and she could feel the paw around her arm to increase its grip but there was no retort on Brad's part and that baffled her. He was working with them and yet he was receiving the same attitude just like she had when working at Precinct One. Maybe after all, the world really was just a prejudiced hell of hate… What was surprising her was that they hadn't been stopped and were moving closer and closer to freedom and all thanks to the buck's drive to help her, to do good. That warmed her heart and she would've hugged him if it weren't for the restraints on her and the eyes that could still be aimed at their direction.

"Dem swine are sniffing about up there? What be goin' the hell on?" asked another voice which she put into rails to be the camel who wasn't that gruff in sound but more pleasant than the lion.

"The fuck I'd kno—" he instantly stopped and loud sniffing began aimed Judy and Brad's direction to which one of her ears responded and she almost began running. "Stop!" he growled and both bunnies froze dead in their tracks with Brad turning around with raised eyebrows and Judy with buckling knees and thoughts of escape. Had the lion caught onto the plan? Had he figured out who she was? What was she to do and why were her restraints feeling more and more afflicting, why was she feeling the rare presence of sweat on specific parts of her body. This was too painful for her heart and angst was dominant, it was putting her in its iron grip and was trying to squeeze her life force.

"We don't have time to sta—"

"Shut fuckin' up, rodent! Bring yo stench of a bitch 'ere! NOW!" he shouted and Judy could feel his paw begin shaking around her arm and she just wanted to run, to flee. Her mind didn't want to go through more horrors nor her body if they found out who she was or used to be. They just couldn't know if she wasn't a cop no more and only Brad knew the truth. But as it seemed, his voice didn't have weight around here, he was just like her and she even felt pity for him.

What was Brad going to do? What was his plan if they were met with opposition… Everything was so rushed and it didn't sit well with her, she was a bunny of planning and execution but how could she plan about such a scenario? How could she know that she'd be a witness to grotesque acts of wickedness and savageness. Simple, she couldn't and that drove her hope into the mud.

Brad put one of his paws on her other arm and pulled as to make her turn around but in her reluctance, Judy looked at him with wide eyes filled with anxiety and noticed the same in the buck's whose nose was just too active in contrast to her own one. Maybe this was it, he didn't appear to have a plan which meant one thing, improvisation, something that Nick seemed to love doing all the time which resulted in his unfinished and damaging plan of getting her out of Precinct One because of the threat that loomed over her life which he obviously viewed as precious. A mistake she forgave him.

Nothing was coming up and to that she agreed to see where things would go so she followed the buck's guidance and they ended up in front of the two mammals who were both scrutinizing Judy from toes to ears. Judy dared to look at them and noticed that the camel was actually looking at her with sorrow that was being betrayed by his eyebrows even if he didn't want to show it. The lion on the other paw was the definition of malice as his fangs were peeking out from his mouth while his sharp eyes tried to find the memory that he was looking for from taking her appearance which wasn't in top condition like it used to be due to the mistreatment and disability to care for herself while in the secluded hellish underground.

A strong gurgling _hmmm_ vibrated in the lion's throat and he looked at her directly in her widened eyes that instantly darted at the floor from fear that he may have seen the rare color they carried. It was a gift she didn't like having at that very moment but the lion didn't seem interested in that which managed to keep her from turning around and sprinting with all her leftover strength.

"Heck ya doin'? Lost ya damn mind?" But the lion didn't seem interested in the camel's question at all as his ears didn't even twitch, it was as if he had all his concentration on Judy and her nerves were beginning to feel the bitterness of dismay which was simply ugly.

"Get 'er closer, muncher," the lion ordered and instantaneously the buck pushed her in front of the predatory mammal, and now she didn't see how she'd be able to run because he could just swipe and finish her right there. What was Brad thinking? What were they to do? The intense glare could be felt even if she wasn't sure as her eyes hadn't moved up from the floor, no, she was sure but the only things that were going in her tiny head were what she was to do and how to escape. She didn't have a clue where the exit was or how she'd get the ropes from her coldening limbs.

The lion's body heat came closer and she heard a deep sniff which pulled the air around and brushed the fur on top of her head, a sniff that was followed by a gagging sound and the backwards steps of the tiger who Judy looked at and saw him put his paws over his nose while coughs escaped against those same paws.

"Smells like damn shit! And FOX—UGH! In the name of FUCK, get the damn outa here ya damn disgusting predo rodents!" Both rabbits didn't wait for a second as they began walking at the original direction and Judy's heart was fluttering from exhilaration that they had somehow managed to go through, she was certain that the tiger would remember who she was but it seemed that the stink that was on her from the now-unwanted adventures she had gone through had saved her fur. She sniffed herself as to be certain that the lion's remarks were true but was puzzled when she didn't feel any sharpness, just more than usual body odor and the lightening smell of vomit which wasn't something normal but she had been in its presence enough to get used to it. But it wasn't like shit and that got her to frown, nevertheless, that frown turned into a very small smile from the small success of bamboozlement.

Yes, there was Nick's scent and slight mark on her but it wasn't disgusting, why would mammals say that? What was so distasteful and unnatural, both of them were mammals and were made from flesh, both had dreams and fears, there was nothing disgusting in wanting to share yourself with someone you felt attachment to, nothing. When she was sure that they were out of earshot, she stopped glaring at her feet and moved her eyes at the buck who was now calm but bleak and from time to time was tapping his fingers on her arm. There was one question on the tip of her tongue, one question to rule them all. "How much more?" And it was the most simple one that held interest in her mind.

A small smile appeared on the buck's face and he answered with noticeable glee, "Don't worry about that, the worst is over." That same non-stop sound of engines was becoming stronger and stronger, furthermore, it was beginning to block the eerie wind's whispers while the path ahead seemed uninviting because of the stale colors and unfinished state of the place, yet it was better than that room inside the ground.

The answer hadn't fulfilled her but him telling her that the worst was over managed to unshackle some weight from her shoulders and she sighed in relief. But with that came the next problem which was remembered too fast to her liking as it had been clouded from the dire situation which seemed deadly moments ago with its aftereffects as well. But it had ended and she needed out. "Can you remove these ropes then?" She tried to stop but the buck didn't let her as his grip was firm around her arm.

"We can't," was his unrelenting reply to which she tried to catch his gaze but he didn't even look at her.

That got her to try again because she was being fed up from his attitude and lack of explanation as well as the neglect of her decisions. "It'll take just a moment." Now she tried to pull back with more force but was pulled harshly which even got her to wince in pain which planted ire in her body but before she could express it, he began.

"I don't know if there won't be any more mammals. No. Can't take the chance," he explained briefly and glanced at her apologetically while her eyes became downcast and even if she found this extremely frustrating, she understood his reasoning. If they were spotted while in the midst of him only loosening or removing them, the cover would be blown. There was no point in arguing and she increased her pace as her legs were now recovered from the numbness that had plagued her.

Thus she began walking in front of him while thinking upon the matters as well as what to ask as they were on loaned time. He was a student, yes, he had told her that and now it looked like a big fat lie which scorned her and pushed the words out her throat, "Why did you lie to me?" To her question was a single puzzled _huh_ and when she turned to look at him, his eyebrows were huddled together but then when he seemed to have realized what she was asking, he sighed despondently and shook his head.

"I never lied. Just never told you." His answer wasn't appealing nor very informative and she held her glare steady. "You're a cop! You don't tell such things to cops!" was his louder then needed retort but when he said she was a cop, it made her eyes to sting because it sounded so great, yet so hollow and fictional now. And he was right, how could've he trusted her if he was in the mix of such illegalities… It was naïve of her to think that he was in the wrong because he was just looking over his own fur like everyone else in the big city, like Nick… But when had Nick done that?

She couldn't remember a point where he had decided to look after himself and leave her on her own. He tried to show her and teach her and when she failed to grasp it all, he had again tried to bail her out in a very unorthodox and tormentful way, yet it was in the past, something she doubted that the bunny next to her would do or most of the mammals in the city because of the lack of even slight care. That idea as well as thought blasted through her mind like a brakeless train, why was she abandoning the belief that there was good in everyone? What was happening to her lately and what were these thoughts of pessimism. No. It wasn't right and the example was just next to her, a fellow lagomorph who was trying to save her by putting himself on the line. He may be prejudiced but he was redeeming himself by helping her. Yes, that was it.

She had to keep the quiet conversation going, she needed to know what she was dealing with, thus answered broodingly, "Was…"

Brad looked at her in perplexion and remained silent as he probably tried to figure out what she meant. "I'm sorry to hear that…" He chuckled which didn't sit too well with her but words followed shortly after and put her at ease, "Because you were a bunny, right?"

They were two mammals who were looked down upon, it made her feel better to have someone know what it's like actually, it made the weight lighter. "That and… because I did my job."

"The world is filled with bad mammals," he added and when she looked at him, she swore that there was a grin on his face but as she blinked, there was nothing there anymore other than his sad frown and she tried to understand why he had been grinning but blamed it on her dizziness. He wouldn't enjoy her suffering and failure even if he was bias towards a certain red fox with who she had great attachment to.

His words sounded fake tho, maybe he was being blinded by his own hate? Maybe that was the case and that got her to probe further with hard reasoning, "Why then you behaved like that in front of my ma—"-she almost slipped something untrue out but caught herself-"friend in the café as well as the waitress, when you know best how prejudice feels?" She saw his dissatisfaction and his grip became harder than needed but she didn't complain.

"Because they're chompers. Always looking down on you and acting superior as if you're no one," he hissed and the resentment was vivid in his eyes, it was dancing wildly and it was rather scary. He was deeply conflicted and bias, she wouldn't be able to make him see as it was like making her grandpa accept that computers were beneficial and not the work of the devil. She blamed her small siblings who played video games a bit too much which got him to accept that belief but that didn't matter right now. Yes, it may be futile but she was to try. Brad wasn't old, he was younger even than her, it was possible for him to see things from another angle because his mind was not muddled nor tempered by time's cost.

"Not all are like that!" Judy tried to assert with a raised voice for which she was feeling regret, yet the need to do so was too hot to stifle.

"I don't care… don't want to talk about this…" he declared and turned dead-serious, thus she could see that the topic had made him closed off thus she zipped her mouth and just walked by him.

The corridors were endless and the place felt like a maze. Some corridors weren't from solid walls of concrete or bricks but from dug or blown rock which was greatly confusing her. The vents and piping as well as cables were everywhere and moisture was suffocating the air heavily. The songs of machinery were becoming louder and louder, also heavy and fast. They were going right where that noise was and when she glanced at the buck, something was wrong because he wasn't on alert, serious or in fear. He seemed somewhat happy as a small smile was present on his face but when he noticed her scrutinizing him, he quickly scowled and his ears went up which greatly infected her with doubt, yet she didn't dig in.

She had to try and pull more out of him even if that was making him aggravated. "Hey, Brad… do you know anything about the Pit?" she asked innocently and noted his confusion that got him to even lower his pace for a moment.

"Never seen it, just heard about it. Why?"

"What have you heard?" The strange thing was that the question appeared to have sparked enthusiasm in the buck as he bit his lower lip and phased off for several moments.

"Ehm… it's deep in the Noc and once a month fights are organized there. There is this very big one that is held each year… Ugm… my boss is responsible to find participants from Happytown while the other crime bosses bring their own as well… willingly or not…"

The last sentence didn't sit well with her at all and she was to accidently vocalize her discontent but the good thing was that because of her experience she now knew to at least keep her mouth shut if she was to get what she wanted even if that was nagging at her consciousness. Willingly or not, Nick was being taken there, there was no other explanation, besides, it was consistent. "So it's an arena?" She received a nod and that nod got her breath to feel heavy while stones formed in her stomach and she began feeling sick because Nick could be there because she was dumb enough to go around when told not to do so. "When's the next fight?"

"The next one is the big one with all of the influential mammals… should be one of these next days… not sure…" That was enough and she was to ask for his help of finding Nick if he hadn't stopped abruptly just close to another steel door. The machinery was loud, very loud and her puzzlement manifested on her initials as he fumbled with his keys and unlocked the door from where darkness tried to crawl out but the dim lighting pushed it inwards but not enough to expose the room fully. Hesitation was controlling her and she didn't enter even when she received a push which didn't work for the buck.

"Come on, Judy. Someone may see us!" She gulped hard and even if her gut feeling was yelling at her, she took one step and then another until she was in the dark room where her whole being was being gnarled from fears and doubts. The door closed and she heard it lock which was beginning to drill her from the inside because this was looking like something else, not like an escape but something different and way worse. But why was she having such thoughts, it was ridiculous and preposterous. It had to be from her contact with Zootopia's dark side.

She heard something to click and light poured into the room which looked like a storage closet with cans of food on the shelves and behind those cans there was a visible vent which dropped her cautiousness and she released a breath that was beginning to ferment. "Are those vegetables?" she asked and sprinted close to the cans in hunger while her mouth salivated as much as it was possible because of the draught she had been put through.

"They are," was his disinterested answer which didn't tick her off as her attention was somewhere else, it was at a can of peaches that was calling her name. Was it actually talking? Had she already lost it?

That can was going to be hers and she was going to open it with her teeth if needed be. "Cut me lose. I'm dying for some food!" she jumped in excitement and closed the distance between the strangely smiling buck who she didn't register as the hunger and fall of her doubts had blinded her, thus she gave him her backside, hence he would remove her makeshift cuffs.

"Of course." He put a paw in between the ropes while the other grabbed one of her shoulders. "Just stay still." The paw that was on her shoulder moved onto one of her straight ears and caressed it with an upwards motion which made her to freeze and ears to droop instantly but her tail instinctively wiggled from the touch. Her eyes were widely opened and her chin trembled because the gut feeling was now too vivid to be looked over, yet she hoped that she was misinterpreting Brad's actions.

"It'll all be over soon," he whispered with a tone that breathed coldness inside of her but her senses were quickly regained and she instantly turned around and created distance between herself and the buck who was smirking disturbingly.

"W-what are you doing?" Judy asked with a madly twitching nose and the buck actually laughed as if she were mad for even asking. She still didn't want to believe this, it could be him joking, there was still that slight chance of him being a wicked trickster.

"You think I forgot how you chose me over that collarless freak? How you humiliated me in front of everyone?!" he shouted and clenched his fists as his ears fell. The loudly humming and grinding noises outside and the constricted space was making Judy anxious, the buck in front of her was managing to bring fear all around her while the slightly weakened restraints around her wrists were filling her with endless helplessness. She could clearly see where this was going because not only she was having that feeling but in her mind alarms were just bouncing around and that was bringing her into poisoned waters of dread. She had to buy herself some time so she could figure something out, anything.

He began slowly walking towards her and that was when she quickly moved behind the table that was in the middle of the room which acted as a small barrier. "You don't have to do this, Brad!" she shouted through grit teeth because her horror was mixing dangerously with her anger as almost everyone wanted to use her as if she was some kind of prop, an attitude that was beginning to grind on her nerves. Desperation was still not completely overpowering her because she had her feet and knew that the buck was younger and less experienced than her, yet his abilities were unknown.

"I don't have to. I want to," he deadpanned and tried rounding the table but she was quick to counter his motions and kept him again at a distance but it was straining as her balance was in conflict which was pushing against her agility. Frustration; bitter and scornful frustration was the state she was in. What the hell was wrong with everyone and why was she the unlucky mammal that was to find these individuals as well as groups. Zootopia was nothing what it seemed and that was darkly empowering her core with futility and distaste.

"I'm sorry! I am…" She tried to steel herself for what she was to say because it squeezed her heart just for thinking about it but that was her only chance to try and get him in her control, at least so that there would be a chance in her cold paws. "I should've seen him for what he was. That _p-pred_!" She didn't show any conflict from her words from the outside but her belly was swirling in war against her false words that she didn't want to ever utter because of her devotion and affection to the fox that she cared for. "He lied to me and betrayed me! I am here because of _him_!" The scorn aimed at the buck accompanied her false words and surprisingly worked in great favor because she sounded truthful.

Then she did a move that surprised the in-motion buck as she quickly bolted at him and got him to freeze just close to the shelves of food while her face filled itself with determination and masked anxiety. She stopped just before him with a nose that tried to betray her actual feelings but she forced all her willpower to hold it still. "He used me and then tried to throw me away like a broken toy…" Her eyes moved to the ground and she frowned sadly, while from the corner of her slightly-glistering eyes she could see the buck's hesitation that had replaced his calmness.

"What're you implying?" he at last broke the silence between them and she looked at him with a slightly lowered head.

She took a step closer to him and his crossed arms moved to his sides which visibly betrayed his readiness to strike if she was to try something, which was normal yet exposed his weakness in the form of masked fear from her. She berated herself from what she was to do but that was the only way to lower his defenses and then to smash them entirely with him in between as well. She couldn't see any other way in the constricted time she had. "You don't have to be like him," she whispered as one of her legs caressed the side of his leg, to which his drooped ears tried to go up but she saw him force them down. He was enjoying this which was pushing her biliousness in the form of bile from her stomach.

"You said you hate predators. Why act like them..." She gazed into his eyes and smiled fakely but persuasively, likewise Brad calmed himself down and his shoulders relaxed. "When there is no need to," Judy cooed and was now just in front of the buck's muzzle. She took a few seconds to be sure that he wouldn't back off from realization and then she slowly leaned into him as if in a hug and rubbed her chin into his while one of her legs went in between his and brushed against his inner thighs. She deeply knew that he wasn't a bad mammal but what he wanted to do was inexcusably vile on so many pages, it was chipping off her mental armor that she had forced upon herself for this deceitful move. His scent was unnerving, his warmth was annoying, his fur felt coarse and his proximity unwelcomed. This wasn't affection, this was repugnance.

His claws traced against her sleeves and one positioned itself on the small of her back, trapping an ear while the other went on the side of her rump which got her to accidently flinch because her mind just screamed at her to finish it but she had to put her other leg around him so that the job would be finished in one blow but her integrity was bellowing at her for what she was doing, it was excruciatingly distorting to keep this up. "Crafty vixen," he whispered into her ear and that made her mouth to open in unpredicted shock. His paws gripped onto her fur as well as shirt while she tried to deliver her knee into his displaced and foul excitement but her balance was lost and she only brushed his underbelly with her hard blow which lost its energy in the air.

She hadn't been able to get a good position because of her caution as to not show her move but as the failure was evident, she braced herself as her body was shoved into the shelves with buttons flying off her shirt and exposing some of her chest fur while a loud groan fled her mouth. Now her back was facing the buck who quickly trapped her by pushing his body into hers and holding her firmly. She screamed and tried to get out of his hold, to hit his shins or crotch but he had entrapped her and she was undoubtedly powerless to fight, yet her rage was great but it was beginning to extinguish because of the dawn of her realization of what was to happen because her best attempt had failed.

"Shh-sh-shh… You almost got me Officer Hopps. He has trained you well," he whispered and pushed himself in between her ears and sniffed deeply to which she growled and squirmed ever so fiercely but to no avail, her bonds and his body were restricting her fully with the crater in her stomach deepening and absorbing her rage, thus replacing it with angst and guilt for what she was allowing to happen. But it wasn't her choice, it was being taken away and to that she shrieked with all she had but the loud machinery that was stomping outside was doing its job, the buck had intended, perfectly.

"You won't ever see him again to where they're sending him," the words got her to stop resisting because there was that prickle that pierced through her like a bullet, a prickle of startling which caused her to just stop and listen as well as try to find more.

Thus, in her shock derived from the buck's words, her will to fight fell because she wanted to know where Nick was. "W-whatt d-do you mean?" she inquired and pushed her body to the side in an attempt to disbalance him but he grabbed the fur on her head and shoved it into the metal surface of the shelf which got her to feel dizzy, furthermore her vision blurred and she sneered through a groan but not a single tear managed to come forth, yet.

"Don't talk out of turn or this will be the least of your worries!" he hissed and put one of his paws around her throat, his fingers pushed against it and she felt this immense pressure which blocked the intake of air while lowering the flow of blood, the squeezing was painful got her to gag and her eyes to water because her mental denial was now on the verge of crashing down, why would anyone want to abuse her, what had she done to anyone... This was happening one way or another and that got her to tremble fully from toes to ears because of her primal past and her fear-stricken mentality.

"Why tell you, the boss will kill me but maybe if you're good, maybe I will… can keep you around until you bore me," Brad disclosed and pulled her into him with his paw releasing some of the pressure while he pushed himself into her and she felt that misplaced pressure on her backside which instinctively flushed her and got her tail to think on its own while her instincts of the past were telling her to submit as that was nature's way of things, that she was captured and that this was something normal. He was a young buck and could give her what nature wanted from her, what nature had put in her gene code for survival.

It seemed that Brad felt her reaction and chuckled, "You're enjoying this more than me you dirty bunny… Tell me how hungry you are…" His nerve-racking breath and tone was close to the fold of one of her ears and that was when she felt his foul tongue to enter one of those sensitive areas which made her to shiver in despair but something else happened as well. Fire, fire that got her head to pull forward from his weakened grasp and then to slam into his muzzle so hard that it brought a afflicting headache in her throbbing temple which made her to feel very woozy as it hadn't recovered from the trauma that she had went through with the pack of cannibals as well as him bashing it moments ago.

Brad stumbled back with a yell of pain and would've fallen on the floor if it wasn't the table behind him on which he leaned against while holding his nose that was leaking red and dripping it onto the unkempt floor. He was away from her, his unwanted presence was removed from her body, and she would've charged at him if it wasn't for the severe agony which was buckling her knees and distorting her eyesight but she managed to stay on her feet and follow where the monster was at, a monster who may have looked handsome and alluring in the past but not anymore, now he was an abomination and a beast, a cruel and vicious beast .

"Fucking SLUT! You're so dead after I'm finished!" he yelled somehow painfully as his paws still stood on the table for support but Judy was on overdrive, this was her chance to survive something that if it was to happen, she didn't know if she could live with herself just from the shame. She needed to not let this even come to terms even if she only had her legs, head and flat teeth at her disposal. She didn't care if she would injure herself, that buck wanted to take everything from her and ruin her life, that wasn't going to happen, she didn't want that to happen. This was not going to happen.

Time was up as the buck groaned loudly and charged at her with fury in his eyes and even if she wasn't ready, her legs moved away and she managed to deliver a kick into the side of his ribs which wasn't as strong as intended but it managed to push him back and wind him down a lot while she almost fell because of the imbalance the restraints were causing her, yet the shelf saved her and she dashed to the side where she could see iron rods that were sticking from out the wall, which meant that they could cut through the rope, but then the buck yelled and she could feel his presence behind her.

There was no time to try and cut them and she swooshed around and had to act instantly as she could see him running at her. She had a single chance to stop him to which when he was in proximity to her, she tried to deliver a kick in his groin but because of the quickly-developing situation, her leg collided with his inner thigh and he managed to grab onto the scruff of her neck but she wasn't finished and dug her teeth with all her might into one of his paws, which hooked out an ear-chilling yell of suffering from the buck who harshly tried to yank her away but only worsened his position as her teeth scraped even more skin and managed to dig inside his bloodied flesh.

It didn't matter if her teeth were flat, she was in flight or fight and this was her attempt which was making her teeth to scrunch with her gums beginning to inflame from the pressure of the bite and pulling that the buck was trying. Her jaw was aching and her breaths were short, this was savageness and the blood entered her mouth, staining it with the impure cells of her violator while more tried to sneak down the fur of her chin. She wanted to spit it out but that would mean letting him go, something she didn't want to do but it seemed that it was going to happen as his fist collided with her head time and time again until she could take no more and scampered away from him, tearing the deepened wound further with skin and fur in between her lips.

The metallic taste got her to spit instantly as the chance was now, while her ears traced the strained sounds of whimpers and groans from the buck who was holding his bleeding wound that appeared to be near one of his veins, wound that was dripping onto the floor. His eyes aimed at her and they were filled with pure hatred, if she were to fail, this mammal would make her wish she was dead.

This time he didn't dare to remain idle and she didn't have time to think through her next move, so she swung her foot from the side at his head but because of her exhaustion and stinging pain around her back, it was slow and he succeeded of catching it and grabbing it steady. The only thing keeping her tall was her other leg with which she couldn't do anything and despair etched itself on her face. She could see the malicious and bloody grin the buck was sending her while he moved closer to her while he tightly held her leg in place which she squirmed and tried to kick with but in vain, his hold was solid.

She tried to push against him but was met with resistance which almost toppled her to the floor if she hadn't bounced back. He was closing in on her and was just after her knee, too close to her comfort if that could even be brought up as a word in such an unthinkable situation of misery. That was when his paw flung in between her legs and groped her which got her to lose herself and scream in frezny as she angled herself and tried to hit him with her only leg that had the opportunity to struggle but she failed and fell flat on the ground which made her to lose her breath and her injured back to yell at her in the form of searing anguish all around.

At least his paws weren't on her anymore and she wasn't feeling his contact on herself which pushed her to try and get up but then she felt trapping weight just above her knees and the sight as well as feeling of him trying to unbutton her jeans which was hauntingly atrocious, it was as if she was in a movie of horrors, a movie which couldn't be paused or stopped. She tried to pull herself up and headbutt or bite him, anything to stop his revulsionary advance of immorality, but she was pushed so harshly that her breath flew out her lungs and stunned her mind to the point of partial and momentary loss of consciousness.

She groaned with suffering while she could feel his paws pulling her decency down from her legs which boosted her with more energy and she tried to kick yet again, to stop him in any way possible thus she spat with all her valor at him but he didn't care, just pulled the cloth barrier down till it met her knees and restricted her legs. "GET OFF OF ME!" she yelled with whatever leftover strength she had but she couldn't do anything anymore, her vitality was being sucked and her options were now almost null. She was totally vulnerable and fully exposed to a mammal who was a monster. Never did she even think about such a situation happening, it was like the worst dream coming true, a dream that was all too real.

Always had she dreamed of having her first time with the mammal she loved and wanted, not with someone who would force himself on her and hurt her, someone who she despised and detested. Her plan for the night when Nick had made her that promise in front of the flat before she had gotten them both captured, was that she'd take the plunge and explore new horizons because she felt that it was the right decision, it felt right and mind-melting, it was perfect. But now, now everything was going to be ruined with a memory and feeling of disgust, could she ever go back to how things were after this, there was no answer that could comfort her.

That understanding tried to destroy her soul and her struggle was weakened greatly, it seemed that the inevitable was going to happen and she wished for it to just end so she could forget that it had ever happened. But how could she forget when she could remember him being so close to her so clearly when she would remember the feeling of him being... What would it be if he was… she didn't want to think about it and in her blinded rage, that had spilled over her limitations, she spat, "FUCK YOU! FUCKING DIE YOU MONSTER!"

A wide grin appeared around Brad's face and he put both his paws around her thighs as if he intended to prolong her torture for as long as possible. "Oh I will. I'll show you how it's done. Won't be like your FILTHY fox!" he growled and in a mere blink grabbed her arm and rolled her around to which she tried to stand on her knees but her head was pushed against the unclean floor and she whimpered in failure while her eyes began stinging hard.

This was happening?! This was happening!? This was happening! She could hear the jingling of his belt and rustling of cloth while the cold air brushed against her exposed innocence that was going to be taken by the monster above her. She couldn't take it anymore even if she was steeled by training and experience. There was nothing to compare this to, even to when she was beaten by those savage mammals.

She preferred to be beaten then to go through this, to be ruined by someone who wanted to show his dominance and ability to submit others under himself. He was nobody because she had already been captured. That awareness made her so mad that the bounds around her arms began digging into her wrists like knives while the buck strained himself to keep her pinned down while she screamed with all she had in an unsuccessful attempt of tears and tightness around her chest. Dust was entering her flaring nostrils freely and was making her cough while she could feel gagging but nothing was coming out anymore because she was simply empty.

From the corner of her eyes she could see him as he angled himself above her and reached for her sides so he could do the incredibly immoral deed, and at last she lost all her anger as it was finally replaced by that pure and clean dread. "P-p-pleasse… d-don't…" She couldn't hold herself anymore, this had been too much and she could already feel the depression sinking all around her cells. She was greatly feeling violated and from the looks of things it was just getting started.

She saw him glance at her maliciously and then felt his paw dragging around her tail and rump. She couldn't take it anymore and released the pressure from her bladder which was immediately met with the feeling of warmness spreading around her thighs and crotch while the buck stopped his advance and quickly backed off from her with his weight being felt on the paw that was pinning her head down but it subsided as he stood up and created some distance from her miserable state.

"You dirty bitch!" She stopped her embarrassing last resort, even if the pressure was stinging, and quickly tried to get on her legs but the jeans around her legs were preventing her greatly and she fell flat on her chin with whimpers of fear. The smell of ammonia was strong because of the lack of hydration she was forced to endure but that didn't bother her, she wanted to hide her indecency from the buck's flared eyes of lust and fury. It had been mixing so hard that even in her filthy state of embodiment, he looked desperate enough to continue which made her to tremble and no longer could she fight him off, her position was making it impossible, nevertheless at least she was able to roll on her back and tried to traverse.

She saw his misplaced want twitching and wanted nothing more but to cut it off so he could never harm her in such a way or anyone else in that matter. She didn't have time to think of something because Brad jumped at her and she was again harshly rolled around and exposed from behind and this time she braced herself for the painful and probably endless torment. He viciously grabbed her ears, which were yanked so hard that she thought they would tear, and just as she was sure that she'd feel his abominable act of sinning, loud whacking on the door came forth and made her breath to stop.

She could feel his heat close to her innocence, it was so close but the whacking on the door repeated itself and that heat moved away from her which got her to release her breath and yell as hard as her lungs allowed to, a raw yell that made her ears to ring and the buck to release them and push his paws above her mouth in an attempt to muffle her to which she bit one of his fingers so hard that she felt the bone to slightly crack to which the buck responded with a scream and a retreat that she let him take while her teeth ached in pain as well as jaw during her breathlessness, but her face, her face was devoid of emotion and her eyes were staring at the half-naked buck in a very icy way, Judy had these thoughts, and there was this maddening fire in her teary eyes, a fire that looked hateful and destructive.

"OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR YOU FUCKINGLY FUCK OF A FUCKING FUCKER!" A loud and very masculine voice roared from behind the door and the buck's ears sprung up as he hastily-startlingly pulled and zipped his pants and hurried to the door while Judy tried to cover herself as best as possible and crawl to one of the corners near the shelf where her resentment was replaced by shuddering while she tried not to sob even if the failure was easy to achieve, but her eyes, her eyes were glued to the buck as if they were going to shoot him.

The wacking continued but now the whole steel frame trembled under the bashes and the buck was visibly mortified as he fumbled with the keys which he managed to even drop on the ground, after which he put several wrong ones in the keyhole. "I'LL FUCKICKING FUCK YOU BLOODY YOU FUCKING FUCK OF A FUCK!" The door clicked and was so harshly pushed open that the buck's bloodied arm was caught in the process and he hissed in pain while Judy pushed her knees further to herself in a delusional attempt of comforting herself while watching the events unfold in front of her. Her mind was telling her that another male had entered the room and it was bad, the possibilities were nothing but unpleasant and vile.

There, in between the door's frame, stood a muscular, but not bulky, black wolf with random tinges of light-brown on some spots on his fur. He had a black leather jacket; a crew neck shirt and trousers where a pistol visibly stood in a holster and a knife on the other side which were attached to his belt. He had a hole in his left ear which twitched at Judy's direction as she whimpered from the physical pain around her back and the emotional of how she had almost been entirely violated which still could happen at any given moment.

The wolf raised his head and sniffed deeply a few times, a moment that gave Judy the sight of two nasty scars on his neck which seemed deep but her observations were quickly broken when the wolf growled and barked at the buck who jumped on his spot and began shivering even more than before. The wolf opened and closed his long sharp claws while he walked by the buck and stopped just before the spot where Judy's innocence was to be taken as now there was a small puddle of her last resort which attracted the wolf's eyes for a moment as he then looked at her in such discontent that she felt narrowing in her chest just from the calculating glare.

The diabolical wolf spun on his pads and faced the buck whose head was now trying to mold with his shoulders. "Were you going to rape this _bunny_?" he asked through uncontrolled growls while his head moved closer to the buck's and Brad tried to step back but couldn't. Judy was flabbergasted and from the crevice between her knees watched the surprising situation unfold, a surprise that now sowed the seed of hope in her for a chance of getting out without hard traumas in her memories. She had enough of those.

"N-no, Sir!" Brad sputtered and huddled his paws together while his stature diminished and Judy could see his fear from the predator who manifested power all around him, unlike the pathetic buck. "I t-t-tried to s-s-show h-her that w-we're s-serious!" he mumbled and the wolf almost reached for his pawgun but then he stood tall and faked calmness. She knew that he was faking it because his hackles were electrified and his claws were tapping against his thighs. Something bad was going to happen and she could clearly see it as day but she chose not to interfere.

"By FUCKING raping the fucking FUCK out of her!?" the wolf barked and took out his gun which's slide he pulled in a metallic click while his eyes stared, without blinking, at the buck whose whole body was like an unstable reactor near meltdown. "You fucking know what that fucking means. Don't you Brad?"

She swore she noticed tears in the buck's eyes but her focus was distorted from her squinting her glossy eyes. "Sir! I'm s-sorry! It won't h-happen a-again! I… swear!" Brad stuttered as he took a step back from the black mammal who was in visibly falsified calm demeanor.

"You hear that? He's _fucking_ sorry!" The wolf turned to look at Judy and smirked falsely in mockery, but when his eyes moved down, he frowned and quickly refocused his gaze at the buck. "I won't fucking shoot you, Brady."

"You won't?" The buck's eyes shined with hope while Judy could see clearly what was going to happen, but somehow, she actually wanted it to happen as nothing was stopping those plaguing thoughts now, they had overwhelmed her and she smiled for just a moment. Justice. Served. Cold.

"Nope! But I'll beat the holy fuck, fucking-fuckety fuck out of you!" The wolf smiled and, out of nowhere, swung the butt of his pistol at Brad's widely-opened mouth so hard that it broke his buck teeth and knocked him on the floor screaming. The wolf holstered his weapon and went to the wall where the steel rusty rods were sticking out and grabbed one which he easily broke, as it had deteriorated over time, with a satisfying snap. Judy was highly against murder and part of her tried to force her throat to yell and stop him but something was wrong, it wasn't happening even when she thought of doing it. Because of her disability to speak up, she tried to look away but her eyes were glued at the groaning buck whose whole face was bloodied while the black wolf approached with the rusty rod in paw.

She was changed, she could feel it because this wasn't her. Where was her compassion and what happened to her sense of justice. This was wrong…

"Best of fucks to your fucking God from me," he quipped with lack of humor in his voice and raised the steel rod.

"W-wait! N-no-n-no-n—" The steel rod was swung into Brad's head with such force that he managed to send blood flying everywhere around him.

"Fucking FUCK!" he yelled and delivered blow after blow into the buck's deforming head and Judy just watched and watched without missing a single detail. "On my own fucking GROUNDS?!" He swung again and this time blood managed to reach her and soil the fur on her silver cheeks but she didn't even flinch. "You FUCKING pussy!" His howl filled the room eerily as he swung the bending rod one more time into the newly-formed bloody and fleshy cavity that was now Brad's head.

The squelch sound that was made was probably going to be something she would remember for the rest of her life while the images would be a thing only time would make blurry, nevertheless, she felt empty and distant. "Holy fuckity-fuck!" The wolf let the rod fall into Brad's head. The room was now turned into a slaughterhouse. " You see what I fucking did?" he asked in amusement and turned his attention at Judy who didn't even meet his eyes as she stared at the twitching corpse of her violator.

It somehow felt so right while being so wrong. She couldn't place it and was in a whole world of confusion because she was actually feeling apathy which was incredibly unlike her. There was no disgust, no sorrow, nothing. It was like her brain had emptied itself and she had become a hollow husk. Maybe he did deserve to die, maybe this was the right way. He had tried to hurt her and now was laying there, dead. Her thoughts were poison and every pump of blood was amplifying that toxicity.

She heard ripping of cloth and realized that she had separated herself from the real world. The wolf was carrying a piece from Brad's shirt with him and began closing distance between them. She immediately felt threatened because of his bloodied state as well as intimidating aura but she was cornered and exposed, there was nothing she could see to be able to do but try to hide her indecency from his eyes that were surprisingly looking only at hers with… empathy? She wasn't sure as he threw the piece of cloth at her and made a circular motion with his claw as to tell her to give him her back.

She hesitated greatly but submitted because, after all, he had saved her and even if he was one insane and dangerous individual, the graceful but bloody act managed to instill some trust within her. He reached with one of his fingers in between her arms and began moving his claw around the knots while she tried to look anywhere but his way. The pressure around her wrists began weakening and she could feel the blazing warmth that was entering her cold limbs which was greatly pushing her discomfort but at the same time the feeling of freedom was achieved as well.

They finally fell and she put both her paws, that had the deep outlines of tightness and small amounts of blood from the broken skin, in front of herself and began rubbing them into one another while the wolf remained silent. She tried to quickly pull her pants but her fingers weren't listening to her and she was failing at her attempts to which the wolf reached to help her but she shouted desperately, "NO! GET AWAY!" Her heart developed that same rhythm and her face was filled with that same fear of being taken advantage of which got him to back off with open paws but he wasn't going away.

"I'm sorry for rapey Brady's behavior. I think he learned his lesson," the wolf grinned at her madly. "And you are?"

Her nose twitched as she moved the piece of Brad's shirt to further more hide her indecency. She wasn't going to tell a mammal who just killed somebody in front of her who she really was so she quickly answered, "Helen."

He squinted his eyes as if he wasn't very satisfied with her answer but then smiled and continued, "Okay, Helen. They call me Diablo. Clean yourself and… think this through. I'll come back later so we can talk about why the fuck you're here." He raised his eyebrows in visible interest of hearing an answer but Judy just nodded lightly and huddled her shoulders together. That was when the wolf sighed and stood up as he took his leave. But just as he was to close the door, he turned around with a smirk and finished, "You don't seem to be from here. Welcome to the shithole-fucking Noc!" And with that the door closed with a click with the humming sound of engines muffling itself, leaving Judy alone with herself, scents of repulsion and a lifeless body.

She took the cloth and went through the fur that was damp with the nose-blocking essence. She finished her job after some thorough rubbing and then pulled her pants up, buttoning them with some failures as her fingers were still shaky from the lack of blood they were forced to go through. She then just moved to the side and hugged her legs as she stared at the floor without any thoughts present as if her mind was a barren desert without an end. She didn't know how much time she stood like that and just breathed but at some point, she felt a prickle inside her chest after which she whimpered and felt tightness that began suffocating her entirely.

She gasped and tried to steady herself but then her body began trembling and all the stress began exiting in the form of tears, exhales and cries. Everything had accumulated so fast and without end that she didn't even had time to think about it and now it just wanted out with the fact that she was just going to be raped hanging just in front of her eyes, a fact that got her to hug herself and try to comfort her mind that nothing had happened, that the worst was over and that she was still whole. It may have been a close call and she may have been touched or seen but now that mammal was no longer on this Earth. He was laying in his own puddle of blood and brain, and the memory of him would cease to exist.

Yes, that was it. Things would fix themselves and she would forget about this, about all of this. But then she remembered the wolf beating him dead into the floor with the steel rod and she couldn't feel a thing, not even a pang of guilt. That was bad and she knew it but she just couldn't feel any sympathy to her abuser however she tried to find it in her good but blackening heart.

Her whole body and appearance was a total mess as her white buttoned shirt had tears as well as colorized stench and too many wrinkles all around, with her shirt's collar pulled to her side in an ugly way and exposing a bigger part of one side of her chest. Her fur was in no better shape as it was heavily ruffled and entangled as well as stained with foulness and drops of blood here and there, she was like another mammal entirely, the only thing managing to stick out being her beautiful lilac eyes which were surrounded with bright red, eyes that were staring into the bloodied corpse but there was no emotion in them, there was nothing but void and detachment. They were craters of heartlessness, they were _dead_.

All of it was baffling but then her stomach pierced her with the sensation of pain and she groaned in dissatisfaction which plucked her out from the trance of lethargy which began at least of warming her spirit back, it was appreciated.

Her tongue was dry and bitter and she was feeling so empty which got her to remember the rafts of food above her and all of her worries managed to fade away when her tongue salivated as all her thoughts were replaced with the memories of different flavours and tastes. Her feet pushed her from the ground and she was now eye level with all the canned goods. There was just so much to choose from but what caught her eyes was the label peaches. She didn't need to think it through as the relatively big can was grabbed and pulled into her embrace. It was dusty and seemed old but she didn't even think about looking for an expiration date as her eyes scanned the surroundings for a can opener which she found hanging on one of the small iron pieces sticking out of the shelves' foundations like nails.

She snatched it and quickly began removing the metal top with great speed and the aroma tickled her nose with her drool actually falling into the can itself. That was how hungry she was and when at last it was opened, she pushed her paw inside and grabbed one of the sliced fruit which entered her mouth and she almost dropped the can from hypnotic satisfaction but then there was that feeling of thirst and she began chugging the juice in abnormal quantities. That got her to feel a bit sick but she managed to keep the absorbed contents in her belly while she chewed on the god-like fruits.

Several cans later, Judy was now sitting on the floor with a slightly enlarged belly filled with vegetables and fruit as well as a small smile on her face and an almost empty can in her paws. She had killed her hunger and thirst and now there was that feeling of calm as she had managed to separate herself from the real world for those gratifying moments but then her nose picked up that foul smell of ammonia mixed with blood and she scrunched her face in distaste as it made her to burp bitterly. She decided to at last face reality and stood up with the rounded object in her paws as she moved closer to the spot where she was almost forced into an idea she didn't even want to think about.

There laid the dead bunny with clotted blood all around him and she stopped just a meter before him and just stared. That was when at last she felt sorrow for him because even if he was a monster, he had friends and family. He should've had had the chance to better himself and go over his actions and see them as wrong. But now there wasn't such an option because it was taken from him, just like he had intended to take hers as well. The realization made her grip hard and her teeth began hurting further as she strained her jaw too much. She threw the can at his corpse and yelled, "You did this, not me! You did this… not me…" A step forward was taken as her paws reached for her chest. "I'm sorry but… I'm not to blame!" Judy hissed and turned around because she was grasping how insane she must've looked talking to a dead mammal.

But her heart wanted to let it all out because if not, it would suffocate her greatly. "If you had just actually tried to get me out and not fo—" she couldn't continue as a sob blocked her throat and the feelings that were now memories resurfaced and bathed her in pain which got her to go away from him and put both her paws over her eyes. Being strong in such a world meant everything and if she was to let herself be consumed by weakness meant one thing: _death_. She could remember the terrifying wolf and his method of dealing with problems and she did not intend to become a broken vessel without a soul. Her eyes went over to the rusty vent and she was just going to rush there when she heard footsteps which sprung her ears at the door's direction.

She had almost forgotten that the wolf would come back, or was it someone else who was interested in trying something on her. It didn't matter because the only thing her mind was at was her survival and the want to get out of there in one piece whatever she had to do.

That was the price that had to be paid when met with savageness and cruelty.

The price of being alive.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

\- Hard chapter here. It was to be longer but I had to push some content out and so I separated the chapter into two. As you can see, there is some disturbing art that I crafted for this specific part with the aftereffects of the disgusting act of repulsion that had almost succeeded. There is also new art for Chapter 14 and Chapter 19, yea you would've known in advance if you were following me on Tumblr. Are you starting to regret having begun reading this fic? If so, say so with specifics! Would love to hear that! I ain't sarcastic.

\- It wasn't easy for me to craft this because I needed to pick my words carefully as well as involve side events in between what was happening. The chapter could've contained more mysteries but I had to cut it in half, it could've taken me way more time to finish this if I hadn't, which is a bummer. Yes, yes, this was a disgusting chapter and if it was, then it was written well. When I was writing it, there was this hostility in me as well as sadness, maybe you'll feel it too. Maybe you've felt it too. Is Judy going to get a damn rest from all this damn fucking shit? Next chap. No legend because I am a lazy piece of work.

\- **Music while writing:** _The Godfather Waltz_

\- **Latest edit:**

\- **Tumblr:** _markovas_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_


	29. Beliefs

**Beliefs**

* * *

 _I'd been a hard day as Judy had to help her father in the fields as to plant the new harvest. It may have been her free day as it was Saturday but that didn't mean that she was excluded from helping the family business, that didn't happen on the Hopps family farm. She had dirt around her ankles and her paws as well as on her clothes, yet even if she felt drained, there was this flow of energy all around her which was keeping her up and moving. Maybe it was the fresh air, maybe it was the idea that the food on the table would taste sweet, or that she'd sleep like a log after such a day._

 _She was still a child, having started school just a few years ago, yet she was establishing herself faster than anyone else at her age, it was very odd even for her. Judy was walking down the corridor of her home, heading towards the showers and afterwards probably right to bed if she wasn't able to find a spot on the dinner table, but when she was passing through the spacious room where the big fireplace was, her mother, who was reading a book on one of the armchairs, called her out, "Judy, could you come please?"_

 _The surprise got Judy to stop and stare directly at her mother's warm smile. Yea, she was exhausted but receiving some attention was never something she strayed from, thus she smirked lightly and, with some spring in her step, began closing in the distance. That was when she noticed her grandfather, close to the cozy fire, in his chair and facing them with his back as he read the daily Bunnyburrow newspaper. She didn't like him very much because he would always be grumpy, always so bossy and harsh with his words if he found out about a problem that he deemed meaningless and insignificant, while being the opposite for the mammal that it concerned._

 _Judy stopped just before the old but comfortable armchair, her feet touching the white wool rug that was covering the planked floor in that spot. She looked at her mother, whose belly was again enlarged from mid-pregnancy, in puzzlement but when she saw her paw to tap the side of her thigh, Judy's eyebrows squeezed together and she raised both her paws in fogginess, to which her mother scoffed lightly and chuckled, thus repeating the same motion. Her dirty state apparently wasn't an issue._

 _She wasn't going to wait to be told again and jumped at her mother, landing in between her legs and sitting quickly on her lap, which earned a light and jovial oooff. Her butt scooped closer and she felt a warm paw to embrace her side which managed to melt some of the tiredness around her body from the hard work._

 _"How was it, sweety? You know you didn't have to stay all day," Bonnie said as she ran her fingers around Judy's ears which got her to smile and snuggle closer to her mother while the sensation of touch got her belly to flutter._

 _She knew that there was no need to stay and that she could've pocketed the rest as time for herself which would've been used as rest but that was exactly why she chose not to. "I know… but I wanted to!"_

 _Bonnie snorted with her ever-present smile, having visibly found out about Judy's intentions which she had always an issue of hiding. It just wasn't her nature to do so. "You wanted tomorrow for yourself, didn't you, honey?"_

 _Having been so easily caught surprised the fur out her and her big heart throbbed hard as she huddled her paws closer to her chest, and she didn't look up until she couldn't see another way out but the truth. "Uuuuhmmm… maybe?"_

 _There was this feeling of expectancy of scolding, even if she couldn't remember ever having received such from her loving parent, even with the sensations around her ears which were liquefying the stress away from her body. It was so odd and misplaced, nonetheless present… "What're you planning to do?"_

 _There was no hostility that Judy could detect, just genuine concern and interest. She actually wanted to talk about her ideas for tomorrow because there rarely was someone that would really want to listen to her, yea they did listen but it wasn't because they wanted to. Now, now it felt different, it felt genuine. "Ughmmm… There's this book… about… well… it's about a bad guy stealing from some poor mammals… and a detective tries to catch him… and he almost catches him but he runs away and… I want to finish it! I don't know how he runs away… but I want to know and—"_

 _That was when the interjection happened, which dropped her heart into her stomach. It was so startling that she couldn't even continue. "Judy… you still want to become a police officer?" Bonnie's smile was down and there was great concern in her lavender eyes, eyes which were a reflection Judy's own gifted thee by her._

 _If she were to describe her emotions, there were two words that fit perfectly: mild anger. Bonnie's interest wasn't in her but her choice of future, which she had vocalized loudly at that school play. Why were they trying to hold her back? Couldn't they let her be who she was and who she wanted to be… "Of course! Maybe… maybe a detective too!"_

 _"But, honey, we bunnies aren't meant for such jobs. You'll be all alone there…"_

 _She wasn't going to be alone, that was not true, it was false. The mild anger turned into irritation because she was stepping out her comfort zone while being just a child, thus it was hard to be sure about everything because it just wasn't possible at such an age, hell it wasn't possible for anyone at any age. Maybe only the Gods, in whom she didn't even believe as they wouldn't create such a world, if they existed, where prejudice would be dominant all around. It was unfair and that had pushed her to learn more and more. "I won't, mum! Sam! Sam will be my partner! He promised me… and we'll catch the bad guys together and—"_

 _"You won't be taken serious, it'll be very hard! It'd be impossible-dangerous!"_

 _Her mother's voice turned slightly panicky and her words pushed into Judy's head in the form of fear from failure. But that was exactly what drove her to push herself, she hated feeling fear and even if she was incredibly inexperienced, she managed to retort strongly, "I don't wanna to be a ordinary bunny!"_

 _Her mother became wide-eyed, as if what had been said hit home hard, unforeseen and absolute. The touch around Judy's ears didn't have the same delight no more and her right foot was starting to get quirky from the frustration that had dawned upon her. But then, then everything turned around in the blink of an eye. "I know… I know, Judy… It's hard for me to accept and let you go but…" -a sad sigh squirmed through Bonnie's lips- "maybe I should…"_

 _"Pffft…" A hard and mocking scoff originated from behind Judy which got her ears to spring up even tho her mother's words had really excited and disoriented her. She could see her grandfather with his long and white whiskers looking at her with scorn, his newspaper severed in half and his lips twitching in evident frustration. "She wannas be buck? Treats'er like buck! Lord willin', a good'ol belt'd fix the whinnin' if'ya weren' so damnin' soft! Back 'em then it works, it'll now."_

 _Judy's eyes widened at the implication, even if she had never experienced it, she knew friends who had told her about them being punished like that. It was awful… vile… unnecessary… For a moment she feared that it could happen to her but her mother's paw went in front of her body and pulled her protectively to herself, which was in the form of great emotional assurance. "That'll never happen, go do something else and watch your trap!"_

 _Her grandfather didn't wait to be told again and stood off the chair with a creak, grabbing his wooden cane which she remembered seeing with the initials of a flipped D and S in the middle of its head, a head made shaped into a perfect ball with varnished shades of brown and black, while the rest of the stick from below the ball was uneven and looked like a very old branch that definitely had some sentimental value to the old lizard. She had asked him once about the initials but had received nothing of value as information._

 _"God-damnin' whippersnappers…" he mumbled as he passed by them with a glare of detest at Judy but his eyes didn't even move towards Boonie who was outright glowering at him while holding Judy tightly and close, which Judy easily could feel but then noticed additionally when she moved her head up. Why did her mother hate her father so much? What had he done?_

 _"Mum, why don't you get along with gramps?" The question agitated Bonnie as her ears drooped instantly and an awkward smile crept around her lips as she stroked her lumpy belly but the smile quickly vanished as she understood that she had been caught trying to mask the situation._

 _"I lived in a different era, honey. Choice didn't exist like now… I was just like you but I… bended… and here we are… not that I'm complaining, heh." Judy had never heard that, never in her life had she been told that. Her mother was just like she was right now, but she had quit. It was hard to understand at the very moment why that had happened but it probably had to do something with her grandfather and the so called 'era' she had mentioned. But then, then what had she wanted to be back then was what her curiosity was whispering at her to ask, after all, she was a very adventurous and curious bunny._

 _"Did you want to be something else?"_

 _It took Bonnie some thinking while Judy played with a tuft of her fur in anticipation, until an answer began coming forth. It wasn't detailed but it was wanted. "I did… I did… But it's all in the past, what matters is the now…" -Judy's cheek was cupped and her chin was raised gently- "I don't agree with your choice but I won't stop you. I won't repeat the same mistakes."_

 _The shock of the words plagued her reaction and she stared with an open mouth while her mind tried to find anything to fill that void with words, anything. And then it came, primal and truthful flow of feelings, "Thanks, mum!" -Judy jumped at her mother's neck and hugged her with all the leftover strength her body had managed to save throughout the tough day- "Love you!"_

 _The embrace was accepted shortly after and she felt warm as well as appreciated. She had waited for so long for her parents to accept her choice and at last, at last at least one of them had did so, had decided to stop trying to keep her away from her dreams and future. "I love you too, honey. More than anything…"_

* * *

Survival, such a basic and primal need which makes you feel powerful and able to do anything at any cost. Could it be considered a weapon or a tool, or both? Whatever it may considered be, what it matters are its implications, its weight and effect to the one who wields that instinct, because without it, the only thing they can rely on is experience which, when lacked, could lead to futility and clouded judgment. Instinct is a part of everyone, inseparable and important, yet sometimes its needs are diminished in a society where order and protection from the unknown are a thing of the past.

But then the time comes when it's called again as it cradles and embodies your every fiber and cell, it comes when all that is taken away and replaced with that same uncertainty as well as fear. Judy could feel it coursing through her veins, it had never stopped since she was taken in this place. She had experienced violations, attempts on her life, murder in front of her, apathy and bilious hate. And now, now that fear from uncertainty had sprung again, threatening to overtake her actions in the form of irrationality and ideas she'd normally never have.

The footsteps from behind the door sounded semi-heavy and almost like the wolf's which squeezed her heart and got her to panic as she searched for a weapon. Even if she had good fighting skills, her body was in no condition to try itself over a heavier and unknown opponent who viewed murder as justice. Thus she looked over at the rod that was laying in between the crack of Brad's head and quickly grabbed it with some strain as it had become stuck inside his malformed skull, but as she pulled, it managed to slip out with a nerve-pricking _plock,_ and even if that disgusted her so much that her tummy rumbled, she managed to focus her nerves and hide herself behind the door where there was that slight crack from its handle meeting the surface of the old wall.

Time was not by her side as a click came into life and the door opened, with the same stout mammal entering shortly after as well as those rumbling sounds from before which spewed into the room like smoke. The spots of blood on his fur and on his clothes were almost not visible anymore but he stopped suddenly just as he came into view. She wanted to whip him on the head and be done with it but the way he froze and given the fact that he was facing her with his back discouraged her from doing so even if her restless fingers were taunting her to do so. But then, then the wolf chuckled and her mouth hung open in shock.

"Okay, Helen. This is what'll fucking happen next." His paw moved into the air and one of his fingers pointed at the ceiling. "You kill me." His second finger sprung in. "You fuckingly fail to do so… leading to me breaking every fucked and single- _fucking_ joint on your fuckity small fucking body." The way he said that got her nose to react and her paws to betray some shakes. His last finger joined the other two and his head turned towards her, his cool amber eyes meeting her uncertain lilacs at last. "Or you drop it and we talk."

Hesitation, that was how she could best describe her state of mind. She didn't believe him, yet there didn't seem to be a choice because she didn't see herself able to kill a mammal twice her size who visibly had a lot of experience fighting but he wasn't armed anymore, as his holster wasn't on his belt anymore, and that was odd. She growled from the indecisiveness and threw the steel on the floor which got it to _clang_ and _bang_ loudly to which the wolf reacted by lowering his ears, while Judy crossed her arms and began tapping the rough floor with her foot.

"Take a seat," he ordered but his voice was actually gentle and even if she didn't want to be bossed around, she figured that it'd be in her best interest to not anger the mammal in front of her, thus she hopped onto the table and sat. Diablo took a wooden chair that was against the cracked wall and carried it close to the table where Judy had positioned herself on, with her feet swinging in the air from anxious frustration.

He put the chair at a respectable distance and sat with an arm around the back of it as he crossed his legs dominantly but his expression remained friendly. That was when he began, "First of fucking all, you lie to me again, you'll fuckingly end up like rapey Brady." Judy's eyes narrowed and her body became ready to act if the wolf were to jump at her but he remained relaxed while smirking deeply. But then he frowned and his lips twitched in scorn. "Do _not_ make me ask."

The piercingly-deep voice chilled the air around the room and she grabbed one of her ears in reflex. She knew what he wanted and because she knew he knew, the position that she was in felt like a dead end. "It's Judy," she answered and the wolf smiled in return.

"Good. Now, Judy? You attacked a bunch of my mammals for no _fucking_ reason... And that is _not_ cool…" The words got to her and twisted her integrity to such an extent that the fear from the wolf just vanished and got her to jump off the table and stop just before his legs, her head being on the level of his upper chest and looking up at his which had etched confusion in ample amounts.

"I did _not_! They attacked _me_. They had killed an elk and were eating her! Is that what you all are? Savages?" she shouted with clenched fists and her paw gestured at Brad's corpse while her face had contorted wrinkles and her eyes were blazing fire.

The wolf remained for a bit with widely-opened eyes and _tck-tcked_. "You're giving me goosebumps. Fucking fuck…" he snickered and then normally ordered, "Sit." To which she moved her jaw around her mouth and returned to her spot after some intensive staring. Her arms crossed in front of her and she huffed at the wolf who snorted.

"That fucking elk was a nasty bitch. Don't fucking feel sorry for her, she used to exploit mammals here for fuck's sake. Then killed one of my guys. That's a _no-no_!" The new information was unexpected to say the least, but somehow she didn't believe him as the images of the gore and severed limbs flushed her memories and boiled her temper.

"Murder is distasteful!" was her hiss that, in turn, got Diablo to chuckle and rub the top of his muzzle.

" _Ha_! Said like a true fucking zootopian." But then he stood up and got her to flinch, yet she kept sitting on the edge of that same table. He slowly crept closer to her until his muzzle was just in front of hers and his scent closed in on her nose. It was musky but not heavy nor light. When he exhaled at her, his breath didn't smell foul, it didn't actually have a scent and carried only warmth around the fur of her cheeks.

That came as a surprise to her because she had expected the opposite from such a dominant figure and then she noticed the well-groomed fur on his face that didn't have even a single tuft with lines trailing in symmetry around his head. His eyes were moving around hers as if he was examining her without a single blink and she tilted her head a bit while her heart pulsated inside her chest, yet the fear was tuning down and she didn't know why.

"You said they were… eating her?" he asked nonchalantly without blinking while his eyes moved around her face as he visibly wanted to see her expressions, which were ones of huddled eyebrows and slightly twitching nose which she forced to stop even if it was straining. Her composure was on the verge of collapsing but she scowled, nevertheless.

"They-were," Judy asserted with heavy eyebrows of aggression, while the hot air from the wolf's nostrils tickled her in an uncomfortable way. His demeanor remained cold and calculating until she noticed that twitching tug on his lips as he forced himself into a smirk and moved away from her, his heat and presence in her personal space getting her stinging anxiety to reduce at last.

" _Fucking cunts…_ " Diablo mumbled to himself with a betraying smile that he was straining upon his being, while he moved back to his previous seat. She couldn't place what was on his mind but she managed to catch the words and they were odd, as if he didn't know about that.

"What were you doing there?" he asked out of nowhere and her ears drooped instantly because she had to be extremely careful what to say as her previous life could bring her well-being in jeopardy. Such a simple question with such hard consequences.

But then, then came a truthful curtain of the real answer which she could use, better said, a sly way to answer truthfully by hiding the details and pushing the interest of the mammal away. "I was searching to rent a place."

"Alone?" She almost gave away the answer, tho maybe he knew and was testing her if she'd hide information from him. But the risk had to be taken, he mustn't know about her connection with Nick, thus she nodded with a lot of self-awareness that she was lying, lies that felt like knives entering her body but if that was the price for life, than she was going to compromise.

He shook his head and his small smirk died into neutrality. "What were you to do after that?"

She could feel discomfort from the friendly, yet aggressive interrogation but succeeded in hiding it. "What everyone does..."

"And the fuck's that?" His voice was getting irritated as she was already provoking him, unsurprisingly. He was trying very hard and her mind was attempting to conjure something, anything to fill the gaps and to stray the wolf away from her past choice of profession that would lead to her definite death if found out. Then she remembered Nick and his words that if she was in doubt and didn't know what to say, just improvise and let it flow.

"Opportunities," was her short and serious answer which got the wolf to stare intensely at her and after a moment to lean closer to as he squinted his eyes and now glared at her determined lilacs which defied the tingling fear in her neck that was trying to force her to move away from the predatory mammal in black.

Just as she thought that he would catch onto her, he smiled so widely that it was actually disturbing. "You _are_ adorable!" he clasped his paws together while he stood up from the chair and went behind it as he leaned onto its backframe with his elbows, while Judy frowned from his words and huffed in grouchiness, while the want to warn him about calling her that fumed inside of her, yet this wasn't just another mammal but a murderer as well as an influential individual who was visibly capable of anything, and she understood that the wolf was enjoying of seeing her strong spirit because every time she showed her hard will, he actually had that fire in his eyes as if it was amusing him but she wasn't going to test her theory when having other possibilities

"So! Now that we've fucking cleared things out of the shitty way, you're to foll—"

She interrupted him and he was actually shocked so much that his mouth remained open, "I want you to answer me some questions first," Judy asserted authoritatively and scrunched her face further in mixed anger and hidden wariness. She knew that the luck that was looming over her was being pushed too hard but she needed to know if her observations were true, if he would respect her because of her unyielding spirit and actually deliver her what she wanted. But the wolf's bemusement disappeared and his lips curled up, exposing his teeth and sending primal shivers around her tingling skin but she didn't betray her emotions even if her nose wanted to twitch so badly.

He again repeated the same move as he got in her face, yet this time his curled lips managed to spike that ancient anguish and release the quirkiness around her body in small amounts. Her heart was beginning to vibrate harder, while she was trying to hold her breath but she couldn't as there was this need for more and more. His eyes narrowed on hers and his nose would've touched hers if she just inched a centimeter. He was in her personal space, hell it was in her intimate space and it was greatly making her uncomfortable, even alarmed after all the violations she had to go through. The dread was infectious, it was peeling off of her composure and she feared that the previous atrocities could be repeated.

"You're an odd rabbit…" he whispered and she swore that his tail wagged behind him but he leaned away and plopped himself into the chair which scrunched in discontent. "It's fair for me to give you a reacharound," he quipped and pulled out his long tongue, that dripped a string of stickiness onto the floor, for a moment with a suggestive smirk but Judy didn't understand what he had meant by that even if there was this distant idea. But she sure wasn't going to use her questions to ask.

She wasn't going to wait for him changing his mind and slightly squeakily, because of the present surge of energy, declared, "Four."

" _Three_."

"Four," she repeated with more assertion this time but the desired effect was the opposite as Diablo grinned madly and put his paws behind his head, while his legs spread and exposed his groin. He was acting cocky and she could feel irritation mixed with the crippling consternation, as well as the sense of losing the ability to be able to argue.

"Two." Her nose wiggled and her fingers tapped her thighs from frustration as the wolf didn't seem to be budging and actually looked as if he was playing with her like if she was some kind of circus attraction, which maybe she was. Him admiring her for her spirit was probably something that he rarely saw in wherever they were. Well they were in the Noc but what was that? Brad had scoffed at her when she had asked, that disgusting sorry-excuse of a rabbit.

"What exactly is the Noc?" The question she wanted an answer for, it had to be answered and the right word had been _exactly_.

His grin died as if someone had just stabbed him in the guts. "Are you fuckingy-fuckingly of fuckery in fucks-serious?" Judy glared at Diablo who was extremely annoyed but he huffed his frustration out and answered, "Nocturnal District. Created by fucked B.D-M excavations while Zootopia was being built… A whole fucking system of caverns and tunnels that stretch under the city for kilometers. Its existence's known by the government but is fucking ignored, _officially_." –the wink that was received from him got her insides to shiver- "It's a place where life wasn't supposed to fucking be, yet it fuckingly happened because the fuck if I know."

He stopped and tugged the side of his lips as to show her that he was finished. She understood that she was in uncharted territory and didn't have a single clue what this place was, well now she did but it was so plain and just not enough. She wanted to ask about details but she had just one more question and the idea of firing it for something she maybe could find on her own greatly demotivated her of doing so.

She needed to find Nick but if she asked for him directly, Diablo could take advantage of the situation and use that against her in some way. No, the mammals had talked about some kind of pits and she could faintly recall, when she was to be used for immoral deeds, that they needed participants. Yes, she had to find out if they were indeed going to send him there and it wasn't going to be hard, she just needed a reaction. "Where're you going to send the mammals you've captured?" The question just plummeted the satisfaction around the wolf's muzzle and his mouth flinched in betrayal.

"How the fuck in fuck's name do yo—" He snapped his jaw shut and tapped his long claw against his chin. That was what she needed, now if he was truthful to his word, he'd tell her what she had asked for.

After some visible thinking, he sighed and answered with a slight frown, "It's the yearly opening of the pit. When mammals lack enthusiasm, we've got to entertain the lazy sorry shits somehow. We're going to have specially fucked assholes as well! It'll be so fuckingly grandiose!" The wolf overenthusiastically motioned and sprung from his chair which would've made her flinch if it wasn't for his friendly and overenthusiastic demeanor.

"You've fucking had your fucked fun, now you're coming with me," he more like ordered and walked outside into the noise, while Judy scratched the underside of her neck in confusion and curiosity of her fate that was to come.

She heard the screeching of something that began closing in on the room, and after some moments she saw what looked like a one-wheeled metal cart with a grinning Diablo behind it. He stopped it just before Brad's corpse and motioned at her with his paw to come which she didn't want to do but when she saw his aggressive hackles that raised, it made her nerves to prickle her muscles and she did so but hesitantly. Her feet stopped just in front of the cart and one paw went across her chest and grabbed her arm as she felt uncomfortable to be close to Brad's corpse again as it was bringing the foul memories which she didn't want to think about at that moment.

Her eyes leveled with Diablo's and he actually smiled. What was he trying to do? She thought that she had read him but now it seemed otherwise. "Well take your fucking time! Not like you didn't have fucked of plenty? Come on or I'll fucking lock you in here until you starve and resort to him," he snorted but his grin died when his eyes caught the sight behind her that consisted of shelves of food.

" _Fuck_ … Come on, rabbit," he inquired and began grinding his claws into one another in impatience while she sighed deeply but as she knew that he probably indeed would lock her in somewhere if she didn't listen, she growled silently and toppled the cart to the ground, to which it clanked very loudly around the room and outside into the corridor from where the huffs and puffs of machinery were groaning in rhythm without end.

Judy had never handled a corpse in her life and she never wanted to but her instinct for survival seemed to have overtaken her and was pushing her through the uncharted fields of blood. She was in a bad place with mammals who weren't in their most sane state of mind even if the wolf appeared to be civil. Civil mammals didn't bash heads open and when her eyes moved at Brad's, which were hanging from his sockets, her stomach almost emptied itself if she hadn't turned around and taken her breath to relax her convulsing insides.

With a very deep inhale that had the odor of stale air, piss, dust and uncleanliness, she turned around and grabbed Brad's shirt as she tried to pull him to the cart but his body wasn't budging and the cloth ripped from the force, which got her to fall on her rump and off him, thus now she sat on coldness with the bloodied tatters of the Brad's ruined shirt.

Her eyes wanted to quiver but she hissed and stood up again while trying to figure out how to get him in there in a way that she touched him as little as possible. The wolf seemed amused from following her unwanted job and then an idea sprung in her head as she got to the other side, careful not to step and soil her fur further in blood as she lowered herself closer to his body. When she put both paws on his side, he was incredibly cold and that managed to go through her and get her to shiver which froze her, as a mental blockade just appeared.

"Don't fucking tell me you're getting cold feet! _Ha_! Rapey Brady almost _fucked_ you bloody and you're damn hesitating? This is some fuckingly-fucked piece of _ass-shit_!" he snapped and she saw him reaching for the stained steel rod that she had thrown previously, which instilled motivating dismay from what more could happen, what more could be seen and heard. Even if she could close her eyes, her ears would hear it all, she couldn't go through that again, not now.

"DON'T!" Judy shouted and managed to stop his emotional advance as he turned around with relaxing lips and just watched. Even after what Brad had done and had tried to do, even after her rage was justified by his death, it seemed so wrong and inmammale. This was not what civilized mammals did, yet civilized mammals didn't try and… Her jaw snapped shut and she used all her strength to roll the lifeless body towards the toppled cart. He felt heavy and the blood below him was now fully exposed to her eyes but she forced them elsewhere and kept rolling him until he was at the edge of the mode of illicit transportation, and with a last final push, he was now half in it but if she removed her paws, he would roll out and that would mean more time around her torture which she didn't want to prolong.

That was why she hissed strongly, "Help me." Diablo kept grinning at her and that made her tone even more violent, "Help _me_!" His grin kept widening for some moments until he chuckled and got to the cart's handles which he pulled, and with his help, the cart was now upright with the soulless pack of meat and bones inside, which got Judy to move away and turn her back at the breathing mammal in the room as she hugged herself because of that feeling of doing something wrong was strong and poisonous.

"Don't mind me fucking waiting, it's not like I don't have the whole fucking Noc to look after!" Diablo snapped from behind her and she could feel his changing behavior as his voice had filled with anger and when she turned around, his stance was following that as well which wasn't good for her situation, thus she sighed sadly and tried to exit the room but heard him to _tck-tck_ to which she stopped.

"You're fucking driving. Let's damn go," he ordered and her at-attention ears fell instantly because she didn't want to have anything to do with this murder but it seemed that her freedom of choice was just non-existent at that very moment. If she declined, the wolf could lock her in or murder her. If she accepted, at least there was a way out somehow, he wouldn't have been wasting his time with her if there wasn't something in his strange and senile head.

She got to the back where the handles were and pulled the cart up so she could angle it at the door. It wasn't extremely hard but the equipment was for someone bigger than her and it wasn't that easy either, while the idea that she was to ferry a dead body, a body that belonged to someone who put her through a lot, was pushing even more strain on her muscles and mind, yet she thrust it out with incredible repulsion and followed the diabolic wolf from behind.

His gait was one of extreme confidence and power with his posture being high and unrelenting. His groomed tail stood tall and swayed with each of step, while his claws on his feet tapped the cold concrete floor with a rhythm that was harder to follow because the machinery was getting louder and louder.

The corridors were like an endless maze and the place felt so gloomy and uninhabitable until they began nearing that source of noise and the surroundings began taking a more industrial shape as now pipes, which emanated warmth, were stretching on the corners of the ceiling with thick cables swaying-along as well. The old brown paint was peeling off the concrete walls but there were still images being visible, images that had withstood the test of time. One had the words ' _Wear Suit At All Times',_ others had images of mammals in gas masks and suits or Geiger counters with the words ' _Safety Is Our Concern'._

That was when she saw something odd, something that caught her eye, it was a half-peeled paintjob of a green-like crystal with words underneath ' _We Carve The Future. We Are The Future.'_ Her eyes had to move away as she hit a hole in floor and almost toppled the cart if it were not for her tough arms which were exhausted but loyal. She didn't need to be told who used to be here, the company for which she knew so little about in the past was now ever present in her day-to-day experiences.

She had read about it in the history of Zootopia as they had built it, she had heard about it in the news, from Nick and his past occupants of his den, from Diablo, who told her that the Nocturnal District was created by them and now she could see remnants of that past. It was unnerving because she had never heard about the Noc in her life and from what she could recollect, they had used an elevator to go down, a very loud and spacious one. How big was this place and how powerful was this company? She remembered the story that Nick had told her and it made her shiver in trepidation. If the company had so much resources, if it could do whatever it wanted, what was it actually doing under everyone's noses?

"You fucking thinking about how much you don't fucking know?" Diablo asked and glanced at her with a very amused smirk of which, when she caught sight, got her to frown away. " _Hah_ , there's a fuckton of fuck out there that even I don't fucking know about, rabbit." He stopped abruptly and she accidently hit him with the cart, yet he didn't even stumble or acknowledge it. "But it's best not to _fucking_ do. Ignorance is bliss," he shot darkly at her through his shoulder and continued his walk as he put both his paws behind his back and grabbed one over his wrist.

The cart was becoming heavier to her and her frustrations were starting to take over because her eyes would accidently trail down and see the disfigured face of the buck which would make her heart to squeeze but not enough to make her stop. What had he implied about her not searching for more or digging further, that had a side-effect and wasn't any better as her curiosity had just spiked tremendously and her mind tried to find more from what she had in her disposal.

Her tall ears managed to catch sounds of mammal chatter down the light corridor and she even noticed two mammals to go through a doorway and head opposite of their direction. These mammals were big but she couldn't place their species, they were covered in some kind of padded armor which was everywhere around their bodies but she couldn't scrutinize well from such a distance.

"Keep your mouth fucking shut or I'll shut it for you, missy," Diablo ordered and gave her a glare. His attitude was starting to annoy her but she nodded with disdain, nevertheless. They began passing through a doorway in which there was this room that had several mammals with white singlets playing cards on a round table with cigarette smoke clouding the air, while the light was very dim and the surroundings were of beds, hanging black coats and even boots. There was a weapon rack with different-sized assault rifles which weren't ones that she had seen in her life, as they were, even from a distance, noticeably modified.

"Move- _fucking_ now!" Diablo hissed and she looked at him with puzzlement. That was when she noticed that she had stopped and that the intimidating mammals around the table were all staring at her with cold eyes which made her to return to her pace with sagged shoulders as she was feeling greatly out of place in a place like this. These looked like soldiers, they behaved like such and even had boots. Boots were used for very rough terrain and were greatly unnecessary for normal life. Even police officers didn't need them!

They passed several more look-alike rooms from where Judy either received negative attention or disinterest, while she tried to spot markings on their uniforms or standard clothing but failed to do so. Who were these mammals and why were they here? Why didn't they care that she was ferrying a corpse and why was Diablo so startled all of a sudden as his calmness was being betrayed by one of his fingers on his paws which was moving without rest.

They neared what looked like a double doorway with two mammals standing guard in front of it with even stranger assault rifles in their hooves. But they didn't resemble mammals very well because their bodies were hidden by that same black padding that was everywhere, covering every limb and every spot of meat and vulnerability. The padding looked soft, it looked comfortable but that feeling was betrayed by the scale-like ordered steel plates on the mammals' stomachs where padding was non-existent, or the small moving gears that were exposed from the soft side of their limbs' joints.

There were these holes on both sides of their shoulders, holes like the insides of jets engines, which were glowing reddish and the air that was being pushed indicated heat as it itself wobbled visibly before her eyes. Their waistlines held pouches with obscured ammunition and grenades, yet these grenades were like cylinders and had yellow radioactive warning signs which were barely visible to be read.

Both mammals were with helmets which had respirators with big filters on both sides that were half-being obscured by their nose-reaching collars around their heads, while one of the mammal's eyes glowed blue, the other mammal had red, thus hiding their real ones and robbing them of identity. Yet, she knew they were hogs because of the shape of their heads and the fact that their tusks were in front of their faces, tusks which one of the hogs had one broken at the base where the helm's hole was plugged by some kind of rubber which seemed to be hugging the other one so that air wouldn't be able to get in. The other hog had these cuts onto the surface of one of its tusks, cuts which looked as if they resembled a count. But a count of what? And why were they so many?

She had to be fair with herself, these mammals were heavily armored and their weaponry was deadly as well as unseen before till now, they were intimidating and they weren't that big either! Yet there they were, standing in the way and breathing heavily through the filters which's use was unknown to her. She tried to find an emblem, a dog tag, anything. And that she did in the form of a flipped down D and an S behind that same letter. It was on one of the soldier's legs and she swore that she had seen that emblem somewhere before, somewhere elsewhere… But her mind couldn't find that memory and the sight thus didn't speak anything to her but muddling of the mind with guesses.

And there were those same boots. From a closer look they seemed so restricting to her, so unnecessary and heavy. If she were to put them on, it would kill all her agility and get her to feel like an overgrown rabbit that had laid too much on the couch. They looked cold as the leather underneath was barely visible because they had been reinforced with steel around the corners and the height below and above the ankle, where that same padding was protruding and hiding the ending of those boots. They were like walking tanks!

Diablo stopped before the mammals who were almost his height but way wider and way more equipped. He stood there and just waited. What in the world was he doing that for? For some reason, she doubted that these mammals were affiliated with him because they had neither greeted him, and neither had he. Something was wrong and the air didn't feel right at all, the sounds of machinery adding up to it, sounds that came just behind that double-doors of steel where she was sure they were definitely originating from.

He continued remaining still, the only movement being that of his chest as he breathed calmly, while Judy stood waiting behind him, her eyes darting around the two mammals for any indication of acknowledgment, yet there wasn't any, just that same heavy breathing. "Move _aside_! Glorified fucking pets!" Diablo snapped at last and took a step forward, a step which was so aggressive and would've definitely gotten her by surprise if she were in their places, yet not even one of them twitched.

Alas, the mammal with the glowing red eyes moved its head at Diablo and returned in a discordant and semi-muffled voice from the helmet, "Unauthorized personnel. Check for illegal entities." The soldier than tried to move past Diablo but the wolf instantly got in his path.

"You're forgetting yourself, fucking child. On my authority, this bunny will pass."

The other soldier pressed something on its circular ear, that had a small antenna, and began talking, "Command, position is not secured. Present unidentified civilian."

"Wait the fuck up—"

"Requesting confirmation for full search." Judy didn't know what to do, the situation seemed to be brewing out of control and Diablo appeared to be losing it by every passing second. Who were these mammals? Were they going to search her? Were the words something else in meaning?

"That's fuckingly not going to happen, fuckers!"

"Affirmative, proceed." The hog with the green eyes nodded at the one with the red, who pushed through Diablo as it began closing in on Judy. Her blood was chilled and her legs were starting of thinking of running, maybe there was another way out? She could try and take a weapon from the racks but could she even use it? They weren't normal ones, not ones she had seen in the academy or anywhere else… Her dad's double-barreled shotgun looked so primitive to her now…

But her thoughts plummeted when Diablo pulled out his pistol from inside his jacket. So it had been on him after all… His paw grabbed the advancing armored soldier by the stiffly-padded collar, thus putting the gun right between its glowing eyes which were staring coldly without waver. That earned an instant reaction as the other hog, who aimed the heavy assault rifle at the wolf, began charging it and she saw the weapon to begin glowing an orange-red color around the feeding magazine. There was this whirling sound which had began slowly and was now in a constant rhythm as something grinded inside the rifle.

"Asshole, you answer to me. See this sexy whore?" The pawgun was forced into the helmet and a hard clank resonated around them.

"Command, possible engagement. Requesting backup at sector M!" The other hog had just alerted somebody and there was nothing she could do…

"All your armor, all your plates… around your cock and heart… won't save you from her flaring mouth." The hog was staying still while the other was trying to aim the charged rifle exactly at Diablo's head but he had angled the soldier in the way as a shield. This was an opportunity for Judy to run but she feared that if she even twitched a muscle, the hog would open fire and she didn't believe that he'd miss, it was very unlikely, judging just from the professional and disciplined behavior.

The pawgun pushed into the hostage hog's helmet even harder and Diablo growled, "You put me in with Command, right fucking now. Or this gets personal."

 _"Get to the engine! Move, move!"_ came the distant shouts from where she and Diablo had came. The situation was heating up slowly but surely and just a single wrong move could end it all. In the middle of that was she with a cart in paws which was ferrying a dead body and it didn't seem that anyone even gave a carrot about that.

Nothing happened for several moments but the hog at gunpoint put his hoof and pressed something around his ear, thus the feminine voice of Command could now be heard by everyone around the corridor. " _Attention ground units, perimetry destabilization in sector M. Assemble—_ "

"Hey assholes. Are you so eager to see my canine dick? Because I sure as hell'll be up to knot it in someone's fucking mouth!"

" _Identify yourself._ "

"Your fucking father, you daughter of fucking mut. If you don't still know, then I'd come to personally fuck your ass bloody."

There was some silence. " _Individual, involvement will result in immediate prosecution._ "

"Save the fucking crap you fucking shitheads. Do you want me to fucking get _him_ on the line, that it? Want me to prosecute your fucking smegma mouth for overruling _my_ authority!?" The footsteps were getting closer, the backup was going to come any moment now and there was no way out. Her heart was throbbing and her teeth were exposed as daunt and desperation about the situation was starting to envelop her fibers. Diablo had lost control over the situation, what was going to happen with them? What was going to happen with her? She was pushing a dead body for carrot's sake!

" _Attention, all units at sector M, autonomous judgment now in effect. Sentencing is discretionary,_ "

"The shi— what the SHIT?!" Diablo bellowed and quickly moved aside, shielding himself further behind the armored mammal, but without changing the gun's position, while the other soldier began pressing slowly forwards. Judy remained perfectly still and that was when the heavy footsteps from behind came into solid presence which got her to turn around and see a dozen mammals of different sizes, some with those same white singlets and others in full black uniforms. They were gathered around the corners with less sophisticated rifles aimed at both her and the wolf.

Was she going to be caught in a crossfire and why was this happening? Who were these mammals and why were they here… She thought that it was Diablo who ran things around the place but he was being threatened at this very moment, she just couldn't see a way out of this and that was tightening her insides. "This calls for fucking your mothers. Fucking fuckers of fucks."

" _Drop it, now!_ " Came the yell from behind her, a yell that sent muscle spasms around her back and neck which was as if it were cramped.

"I'll drop your mouths on my cock, scumfuckbags!" He pulled out his phone with his free paw and quickly dialed, while the stray chatter from Command could be caught by her ears as the soldier hadn't stopped the open broadcast.

" _Attention residents, inaction will result in permanent regional relocation_."

He then put it on his ear and trapped it with his shoulder while his paw went to grab the soldier yet again. "General!" Diablo shouted angrily and she was baffled why the soldier had not struck him or even had tried a quick disarm.

" _Move away from him, Diablo!_ " yelled one of the mammals behind Judy and she finally removed her paws from the cart's handles which got it to collide with a barely audible clank on the floor. This was too much for her to be able to stay still amidst all these steel sights and nostrils which breathed death, death and death.

" _Ground teams, proceed to residence 1056._ "

"I don't give a flying fuck! Call them down, NOW!" Judy began slowly moving away from the cart but her attempt was easily registered by Diablo whose eyes spoke rage, while his curled lips desperation. "STAY!" the deep hiss got her to root in place at the sight of madness and heartwrenching fear.

" _Illicit entities have been detected in your area. Status: amputate, disassemble, liquefy._ "

The whirling sound from the assault rifle that was in the hog's hooves was twisting insanely around the enclosed space and she could see bright red at the base of its barrel now. Was it going to fire? "These retarded mongrels of whores will start a fucking war!" Diablo yelled into the phone and she could see his claws digging into the padding around the steel collar. How could they be so sharp?

But then came this voice, masculine and hoarse which replaced the one of Command, " _All units at sector M, Command has been overruled. You're to resume your duties and let Diablo pass through and do as he wishes. Insubordination will be punished by regional relocation to Apenine or execution. Court martial will be denied._ "

Diablo growled through his teeth and holstered his phone but not before yanking the steel collar of the soldier before him who was relentlessly staring into him with his glowing red eyes. "Maybe I should…" His finger began pressing on the deadly trigger while all the rest of the mammals lowered their arms instantly. Was she going to witness murder yet again? Her moral compass was being twisted and turned without end…

But the pressured trigger was released and Diablo shoved the mammal away from him but without removing eye contact for even a second, until he passed by the hog and bashed the doors open with his leg with such ferocity that it made Judy to jump in place, unnoticeably to anyone, while those rhythmic sounds of grinding spewed all around the corridor and got her ears to ring painfully. Diablo's head turned towards her as he caught one of the massive doors and kept it open. She could see a part of the room where there were these familiar glowing green, crystal-like objects…

She grabbed the cart's handles and began moving carefully forward. Her eyes dared to dart at the red-eyed soldier and surprisingly, it was with its back at her and she was able to have a glimpse of a very strange device, one with that same green-crystal that was protected by transparent tube-like glass, but very small, that was linked with these cables which went into a spinal-like attachment to his body with several more empty ones around it which weren't obscured by any padding and looked thrillingly-scary and unnatural. Its head turned towards her and for a moment she caught its dead glance which made her increase the pace.

But she was Judy after all, and before she was to enter the loud and mechanized room, she peeked at the other hog who had that same crystal on the small of its back, yet the thick cables were more and were connected to a few more extensions. But then the door closed with a bang but the sound was muffled by the loud grinding. She saw Diablo's sullen expression and raised hackles. Raised hackles were never a good thing, not with aggressive mammals and her being amidst them. But curiosity always managed to stray her thoughts away even if it was her life at stake.

Her want to scrutinize the giant machine got her to notice something even more grandiose and interesting. It was a giant mammal, an elephant in the same outfit as the hogs, yet its helm had a single and very big hole which glowed dark red. There were no tusks and the weapon in its paws was massive and different than the rest as it had four muzzles and a large enclosed magazine. Now this, this wasn't a mammal she would want to have a problem with because it just didn't appear to have any weak spots or vulnerabilities… If a mammal like that were to roam the streets and commit crime, could the ZPD even bring it down? They had tranquilizers and even if there were firearms, the armor was probably as thick as one of an actual tank! It definitely looked as such and it got her to gulp nervously.

The mammal didn't even looked at them, just stood like a lifeless statue, however Judy couldn't detect any breathing as the room was filled with that cacophony of machinery which at last made her look forward and stop suddenly as she was to collide with the machine itself with the cart. The surface she had been walking on had changed, it felt more cold and way more slick, which got her to look down and see something like a trapdoor, which made her to pull the cart back to its edge and finally look around the big room which was filled with many wires, pallets, barrels, control consoles, pipes of different sizes and even ancient generators that were bolted to the floor.

Still, the one which was incredible was that after the trapdoors. It had these cylindrical springs which were behind this thick glass and you could see them move throb by throb with oil trickling all around, while its cogs rumbled inside the capsuled vessel of its body, body which had many vents and just glowed heat everywhere around the spacious place. Most of the cables were attached to this machine but rather than it being pristine, it was rusty and seemed old, its metal had started deteriorating and she could faintly see some kind of logo on a part of its surface but it couldn't be recognized anymore.

The most interesting part tho were those green crystals which were behind a similar glass just like the springs. They looked like thick spiky grass that was attached to the machine with thick probes underneath without insulation, thus the bare copper could be seen, while they glowed with every puff that came from inside the marvelous construct. Her marveling of the place was noticed and she felt a presence near her which got her to swoosh her head and take a step away because she didn't want anyone close to her at that moment. It seemed that Diablo understood, nevertheless, he yelled, "They call this _Maker's Breath_. It's an old piece of shit but does the job well. Provides juice for the whole Noc. That's why that oaf there is here most the time. Paranoid fucks…"

Diablo moved closer to the machine, without stepping on the trapdoors. "It runs on these crystals which are the most expensive shit in the world. As you saw, these fuckwits run on the same power but all comes at a cost," he yelled and pulled a lever that was on the machine which made this loud hissing noise and the trapdoors began moving in the opposite directions, revealing darkness, cables, gears and even more loudness below. Judy had been on the edge and the newly forming hole made her take a step back as she felt this tingling in her body if she were falling. Her body was just above those doors moments ago!

"Know what this is?" he asked loudly as he pointed to the dark pit, and she delivered by just shaking her head in decline. "That's where the beast that pumps juice for the Noc lives. It was here before me and before the guys before me. I don't have a fucking clue how it keeps on going without repairs… and how it hasn't broken down yet… But! What I do fucking know is that is has a purpose. Like everything in this fucking fucked world." He smiled and glanced for a moment at her while she stood a bit starry-eyed. "A clock without even its smallest cog is a clock without use. That clock is for the fucking trash without that fucking cog… You see where I'm heading?"

Judy understood what he meant but what she didn't understand was what he wanted from her because even if he wasn't saying it, it was being heavily implied. "What do you want from me?" she asked but as the wolf's ears didn't even twitch, she repeated herself but this time louder.

"Since that rapey piece of trash is now a caved-in fucking head. I've lost one of my cogs and my shit's now fucked." He moved closer to her and one of his paws reached for her shoulder on the other side which made her jump lightly but because both were on the edge of the chasm, she stood still even if the touch was greatly unwelcomed due to recent experiences.

"And what can I do about it," she grumbled and felt his grip on her shoulder to release the tension a bit.

"I want you to work for me! You may not have the stomach but you have the guts." His muzzle lowered close to her ears and he whispered, "And I like that." The words got her to feel that numbness around her feet and as she processed the information, her brain tried to find reasoning of what she was to do. The words were warm, they showed her appreciation for who she was, unlike when she was a police officer. This could be an opportunity for her to start anew, to show at last her skills and be who she wanted to be with some alterations. Nick had told her that there were other ways but she didn't believe it… maybe she should accept, maybe.

"What am I to do?"

Diablo smiled and his grip became just one of touch as if to remind her that he was in control of her life. "Gather information and do some grunt work here and then. That piece of shit could only do one of those things because he was a spineless animal. But he did his job until I did _him_ ," He laughed and swayed forward which got Judy to panic that he would push them both into the black void but he regained his balance and tapped his clawy fingers on her shoulder.

"And if I refuse?" she asked and instantly felt his claws to dig into her but not enough for pain to activate, just enough to throw his unspoken point across and to further show his control over her. His joviality died and a very calculating gaze replaced everything all around him. It was so cold and harsh, while she didn't know what he was even thinking even if he had said that he liked her spirit. This was a mammal she knew almost nothing about and that was scaring the fur out of her because they were on the edge of somewhere with a dead body that she had kind of an idea where it would probably go to and there was that chance that she could be next which was very not likable to her.

"I won't be happy… You don't want to fucking make me unhappy, do you, Judy?" he asked sharply and lightly tugged her forward which made her to feel instant prickling in the nerves around her legs, thus she grabbed the sleeve of his black and leathery jacket because her loss of balance was almost going to leave her in free fall. All she had to do was accept and say yes but even if her throat tried to do so, her mind and heart were pushing that drive further and further away with the strength of hundreds. _Integrity_ …

She could betray herself and work for a mammal that killed or let alone had other mammals under him who slaughtered and dismembered corpses as well as consumed them. Sure, it was just a job about gathering information but then that information would be used and things would happen because of what she had done as work. That would mean sleepless nights, but what was worst was that she'd betray her own self by agreeing to such terms, it would mean mammalhood suicide. _Trust_ …

"Special privileges, money, respect, a home. I can see potential in you even if you look like a usual dumb hick. It'd be a waste if you…" He pushed her again and this time the only thing that kept her from falling into death were her two paws that were desperately holding onto his disheveling sleeve and his paw that was still on her shoulder, which worked like a small crane. Her feet stung as there was nothing underneath them while her bruised body could keep hold onto him for not much longer, which got her to groan in pain from her bruises and whimper in attempts to pull herself up. "Slipped," was his ugly joke but then he turned serious and moved her back so that her feet touched the edge and got onto her tickling soles. _Bravery_ …

He had lifted her like she was nothing… It was so unfair… His threat loomed over her like an unwanted reality while his paw had trapped her into an irreversible position. "This is against my beliefs…" she answered sternly and saw the instant disappointment in the wolf's eyes but it seemed that hope still lingered in him as he tried again.

"Are your beliefs more precious than your own life?" He asked and lightly released his grip on her. There was this sorrow in his eyes that was barely visible, it was so odd seeing it on him but it vanished quickly. She wanted to see more of his expressions but then something happened and the inside of her head pulsed pain, thus she winced and felt light-headed. There was this pressure around the place, it was in the air, it was so… mysteriously-strange and suffocating…

She thought about it one more time in the midst of all of it. Were her beliefs really more important than her life? But what was her life without her beliefs? Wouldn't life be meaningless without them and if they constantly changed, wouldn't that mean that she was lying to herself as well as being inconsistent which would again lead to that same meaningless existence? If she betrayed herself, what would that make her? Wouldn't she be even worse than the mammals she despised? Another throb appeared out of nowhere and this feeling of sickness was starting to form inside her guts, which was crawling up her nerves and into her brain.

"Yes. Yes, they are," was her confident finality that was delivered with strain, which got the wolf to sigh and to push her weight around as he seemed hesitant about his choice until what she added made him to stop and stare. "Do what you gotta do…" she finished with a glare that burned intensely against his squinted eyes until his paw moved on the small of her back and she braced herself for the final push that she would try to do something against by at least gripping his fur or clothes. There was going to be a fight and her eyes had already spotted a staircase close to the giant elephant who was idly standing. She just needed to get away from his grasp and the only way to not get caught by those sharp claws was by getting him by surprise.

But then came another hard throb inside her skull and the previously-silent bruises that had been done to her began burning all of a sudden, while her vision blurred for a short moment, thus horror from the unknown replaced her worries of imminent death.

What the hell was going on with her?

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

\- First, if you haven't seen my latest update that was deleted some time ago or my Tumblr, I had been reworking the older chapters as to get the style of writing in line as it had changed after C7. C7 has been updated a lot and has the addition of 14k+ words of content which I advise you to go through as it is awesome! If you've missed, C5 has had an addition of 4k words in the form of some of Nick's childhood backstory as well as what had happened to his father.

\- Yea, this chapter doesn't answer the questions about the Noc, only raises more, and it isn't that cool but the next one will give you more to feast upon, promise. Second, I'm starting to feel terrified as I'm realizing the scope of this story… You can't open the plot document and see that you're not even at the end of the 1st paragraph, while there are 4 more to go, and not feel crippling muddling around the brain. I mean, they won't be as long as the first paragraph but who knows if they won't be? I ain't a psychic and I'm not even trying to milk this! It's like a fucking stream of crazy ideas… ARGH!

\- A fellow writer, **LuluLopez** , uploaded her first chapter on **AO3** of her Zootopia fanfiction ' **You're the Boss** ', which you should check out as her abilities of a writer are sharper than mine considerably, while her criticism has aided in the betterment of this story. Go give her love, she deserves it!

\- **Music while writing:** _Vladimir Visotsky-Ohota na volkov_

\- **Latest edit:**

\- **Tumblr:** _markovas_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_


	30. Awedisrepair

**Awedisrepair**

* * *

Clarity, such a simple word with such basic implications, yet it can be lost so easily, hewed to pieces and dissolved into tiny sand particles of chaos and destruction from the most elementary force of change, one that lacks consent or choice. Without clarity there can be no right, no rationality and righteousness as the dissonance of the devilish forces of disgruntlement would be in charge of the parade, they'd be the ones driving the mind and will, thus smouldering the decisions with hazy lies in sheepskin of the truth, in veil of the _right_ choice.

A just world, is a sane world. There's nothing sane about _pain_.

Pain… one of those forces that drive the war against clarity and stability, because it demands the mind's energy and capacity to flow towards that issue within the self, and to try and stop its spread around the body, thus replacing the signals of sentience with those of savageness and primordiality, as _pain_ is the only thing that can make you forsake everything so that you can make it stop, to make it lessen and drain away from your being, hence you could return to the state of serenity, peacefulness and balance.

Such was the situation with Judy, as her mind resonated miserably with each pump of her heart, while the seared bruises that were around her muscle and bones were flaring as if engulfed in slowly-progressing flames of melting suncores. So much misery… it had come from nowhere and activated all around her, as if the air was made from magnetized needles that were being attracted by the contents of iron in her blood. The air had this metallic scent that was remaining inside her wiggling nose, and it even made her lungs to contract, to which she sneezed so hard that her lungs grumbled with squeezing discomfort.

But she couldn't linger on this, Diablo's paw was still holding onto the small of her back, and he could push her into the endless well of bleakness and finality. There was so much she could do, so much more to see, so much more to experience… so much more to feel other than anguish, hurt, and sorrow that had dominated the last few days of her life… Even after everything had went south, even after she was heartbroken, things had begun repairing and they were heading towards a better future… but then she had to listen to herself and poke around where she wasn't supposed to… and now… now she was going to be extinguished…

She didn't want that! She _forbade_ it…

It wasn't despair that infected her, it was despicable animosity at the world, animosity at the current feeling of pulsing prickling and probing around her body, animosity against the diabolical wolf who was trying to break her and use her for his own goals… Her lilacs sought his blackened ambers in a reflex with the speed of the undiscovered, while her lips curled into a very disgusting snarl that exposed her flat teeth, which were still partially coated in Brad's red essence-still. Maybe she would've killed that cowardly buck if her paws hadn't been tied, maybe he didn't deserve such a quick end, one that seemed too justified and marginally mild now that her every cell broiled in this hellish pool…

Everything that she was, it was being twisted and hammered into destructive emptiness… Pitiful _weakling_ …

Her ears hadn't registered that she was actually growling with each breath, because there was this oblong hissing inside her skull that was accompanying her pulses of hurt. Who were they to tell her what she was to do? Who the hell were they to think that they had any control over her? Huh!? Who gave them the right to tell her if she was to live or die?!

Nobody had that right. _Nobody_! Nobody but her, that was her right by birth and its exercise was to be done only by her own choices, choices that now were very clouded and blurry, because her thoughts were blighting from worry to extremely senseless.

There was this sudden bloodlust that overtook her from the emotional state that had been taken off rails, and her body began shaking violently, because of the overdrive of her adrenal glands that were inflicting her insides with more and more energy than necessary, which was just reflexively getting her jittery and further precarious to make rational decisions. Diablo was still looking at her in dumfounded befuddlement, but she felt the black claws to begin closing in on her skin close to the side of her neck, where they were managing to reach because of their length, their pointy edges of kill.

There was no need for words, she wasn't going to beg, even after having gone through so much, even after her rabbit heart had just exploded from the stress of the world, from the death of her best friend, to the hardships of her youth and witness murder for the first time with her own eyes. From the nasty and soul-crunching betrayal that appeared false in the end, to the loss of her dream and the experience of savageness in the form of cannibalism and more death… the violation of her body and nearly successful defilement, which followed by even more rot, cruelty and violence…

"Do it!... _Do_ it!" she screeched through grit teeth and moved even closer to the edge of the gaping mouth of hunger, but without even detaching her murderous glare from the quizzical wolf. Was he mocking her? Did he think that she was afraid, because she was just a dumb bunny? Was that it? The throbbing was increasing the discomfort and the boiling of her flushed blood was starting to worsen, and that was when she surrendered the last drops of care. All that she had left was her madness that her mind was drowned into.

 _It's not me, it's you… It's all of you, you're all delirious… everyone!_

She tried to shrug his paw away with a very harsh motion of her shoulders, but his grip became fiercer, to which she hissed and moved back a step. Her choice was her own, no one was going to force it on her, nobody did. All her choices were her own and she had taken them. They were going to remain as such until her last breath of air, even if today was going to be it. Without any hesitation within her intoxicated mind, she slashed forwards with all her muscles' capacity remaining.

"The fu—" Her ears blocked out everything, all that was in front of her was the other side, where the old pile of machinery gnawed and clanked with every pulse of those green and rooty gems. The other side wasn't close, but maybe there was a chance to make the jump, maybe salvation was testing her if she was worthy of the most precious fuel the earth could've mustered in sustain: Life.

Natural selection.

The presence of his paw behind her back was removed and both her feet edged the rim of the entrance to the next realm. This was it, this was the jump that was going to either translate into the end… or the beginning. Her haunches contracted, and she was just about to spring like a coil, when she felt resistance against the side of her shirt, with this hard yanking that pulled her oxygen out and managed to even sever some of her top buttons on her cloth, which flew randomly into the reaper's mouth below, thus giving the old beast some small sacrifices to stifle the ancient hunger endless.

But she didn't fall on her back, as that same paw that had pulled her slid in front and the pressure of something sharp and solid manifested around that area of gulps. She pushed forward but the razorness sunk into her like oversharpened swords, and even if enmity was driving her choices, the instinct for self-preservation managed to at last capture her rebellious attitude that was getting harder and harder with each hard throb of contained crimson.

Her head slowly arched towards the mammal, whose eyes she wanted to gauge out but, with amazement replaced, she gawped with itchy anticipation of his next move, as he was with highly raised eyebrows, and his cold gun in the other paw. Had she actually managed to get him jumpy, or was he using that to try and curb her? Whatever it was, Diablo's etched bemusement halted the frying of her sanity, and no further resistance was initiated on her part at that speckle in time. Her vision was refocusing randomly but her glare was unwavering, as if she was just waiting for him to make a mistake and underestimate her… _like everyone else_.

But it never happened.

" _Wow_ ," he mouthed and just stared into her to an extent that it became borderline creepy and very, very awkward, while his paw's fingers began drumming on her neck, and she could feel his acuteness tickling her fur so much that she trembled furthermore from reflex. His gun moved a bit and his finger shouldered in front the steel trigger. He wasn't going to take a chance with her, a smart decision on his part, but then the led-filled nostril moved down, as he hid it in his holster, with his paw gently moving away from her hot neck, and his body slowly creeping out of her personal space that had been utterly trespassed since she had went into that dingy alley in Happytown.

Her scorn reduced its magnetism, but the feeling of wanting to hurt the wolf was still there, thrashing inside the cage that was slowly giving in to the unbridled force of delusion. She just needed to get him disbalanced and steered into the squawking pit of blackness deafening, but the doubt of success was holding her itchy legs grounded, yet she was very easily translating her intentions with her body as it was in a stance of split-second readiness.

The mechanized guard in the room hadn't even moved a muscle, it was as if it wasn't there even if it was, and being able to blend in with the noisy environment was an achievement of its own. Judy could see the catwalk above and the metal stairs behind Diablo, where a medium column with peeling concrete stood, riddled with cracks that had spread like deposits of lode. Her heart was pumping, her mind was sprinting, her peepers were scouting, but Diablo was showing not a single sign of wanting to finish what he had initiated, his shit-eating grin having the effect of keeping her from acting, as well as getting her to want to find out what he was thinking about, as her survival depended on that.

It would've been so much better if she had a keen nose, as a mammal's scent changed with their feelings and state of condition, but alas, she only had her radar ears, which would've been able to determine his breathing, but they were useless in such a cacophonic environment. It was peculiarly frustrating that her senses were so dulled and her reliance was put on the ability of her periodically-smearing eyes, yet it wasn't enough, it just wasn't. Every passing second, which felt like an hour around a black hole, fueled up the perturbance which had never left her since Happytown's despicable adventures.

And then, his paw moved up a bit and he exposed the front of his palm, accompanied by the yelled words, "Then, I'll at fucking least give you the fucks to send this rapey fuckwit to his fuckalife," which was, mildly said, unexpected. She couldn't trust him or anybody in association, so her guard was to remain up at all times even if he wasn't showing any signs of secrecy and ulterior motives. He wanted her to work for him and she had declined, which had given him the green light to do whatever he wanted to. No, she couldn't trust him, she couldn't trust anybody, all the hurt that had come from the naivety, it had led to her to here, _to_ here…. to _here_ …

Trust in distraught shambles, kicked, beaten, smeared, ravaged, besmirched in evil, murked in red, wallowed in filth… and yet, somehow it clung to her, despite the abysmal disregard to its existence.

It wasn't hard to catch onto Diablo's words tho, and she crossed her arms with an extremely nasty frown, thus defying his attempt of getting her to further work for him by more so digging herself in the association of Brad's murder, which she had a paw in, having had pushed his corpse to this black, illful and noisy void. But she wasn't going to continue this anymore, not after her mind having emptied itself of the unnecessary information that had been replaced by what she was compromised of, even if the indignation was broiling continuously in a claggy manner. There was no care in her if that would get him to reconsider, as she had made her position clear like purified water, and nothing would make her change it. At least… she _naively_ believed such.

But as we know, our beliefs shift with time as we grow, and that makes the position of our beliefs wobbly and unstable to opposition that is consistently logical and has the weight of truth, which overbears the one you hold to yourself. In turn that creates the transformation that is either slow, progressing over time without you feeling it, or instant where dissonance becomes dominant and hard, as it pushes the cacophony into your psyche.

That is the form of the attempt of change.

But then Diablo just shrugged his shoulders and circled around her to get to the cart. Now was her chance to get him, but the staticly-skulking guard in the room actually twitched for the first time, its grip levelled the big minigun up a bit. There wouldn't be hesitation of getting the wolf in a crossfire, the other guards had proved her that. Diablo grabbed both handles and angled the cart, but something made him stop, and she heard him to snuffle very loudly, with phlegm flying out his mouth and onto Brad's stifling corpse, after which he yanked up harshly, and the crimson lifelessness sluggishly fell into the rumbling darkness, while Judy tried to find a suitable, yet unknown word of how she felt all about this.

There was this great disgust at the wolf's handling of the past-alive mammal, yet somehow his actions fed that relief, which was making her so scared of herself as that feeling was vastly going against who she was as an individual. There may have been justice but it was served wrong, it wasn't supposed to be like that. But a part of her didn't care anymore, which was exactly from where her trepidations were derived from. Maybe… _maybe_ she should just accept what had happened, _maybe_ it was the only way to row? That was what Nick had warned her about, it was what she had to adapt to. Because he knew, he knew more than her about how the world worked, he was tru-…

Who was she kidding? Even if she trusted him to some degree, she didn't know much about him, just that he had protected her in dire situations.

But trust? Such was _humorous_.

But then, entrapping gloom. The mammal who had tried to steal her control was dead, he was going to become a pile of mince, a pile of forgotten memories, a pile of nothingness! Everything he had done was going to fade away into nothingness, and he had deserved all that had happened.

 _He deserved it!_

But that noise… that nasty and foul echo of grinding and popping that vibrated from below the ancient's belly and around the electronics-filled room. It began drilling into her aching head, it began barbing her insides, it was making her nauseated. Her lungs were stiff, her mouth was starting to salivate, but her expression remained one of a wide smile that acted as a horrifying remainder that something was genuinely wrong with her. She wasn't acting normal as the unstopping pain was just starting to get to her, yet there was this repulsing smile that was cutting into her face like razor wire bestial.

Finally, an unwanted belch, it got out her mouth and the bitterness climbed from her insides in the search for freedom from the convulsion of her contents. She tried to gulp it down from dread that she'd feel that hunger again, but all that happened was that some of that retch tried to derail into her lungs, which resulted in her coughing with a strained shrill, as her body fell on her knees close to the edge. The rest came pouring into the craving belly bellow, the scents of oil and friction and… rot?

She had to stop herself, her survival depended on it, therefore through pulsing heartache and attempts of serenity, she clenched her stomach with teeth grit, and exhaled in a whimper that left a colorful string of saliva down into madness. Her bloodshot lilacs opened, and she glared down with newly acquired and temporary calmness. It wasn't that dark. Some of the adjacent rock below, where the slick steel was climbing down, was visible. Rock like obsidian, like a widely opened maw from where came this very light stream of gust, one that actually had a smell: Stale and rather moldy with hints of… old and protruding decay…

Huh, this gelid realm of black, of casualty, it actually looked rather… exhilarating? So simplistic, so disassembled and available… within reach, her paw moved forwards into the light swoosh, and her fur, which was mated with her stomach insides and blood, tried to go with the flow. It got her itching-hurt arm to feel for a moment normal, it got her to smile away from malice. Grey, red, yellow… interesting colors with fur and pink skin underneath that hid from everything and everyone, skin that loved the feel of gentle touch and affectionate devotion…

She coughed in a wheeze and spat the bitterness before her, after which her legs pushed her wobbly up, and she breathed deeply the air that felt so wrong, so unnatural… Her mind scraped inside her confines, and her dirty paw touched her forehead, as she groaned in the afterglow of her loss of rage and the continuity into uncertainty, a place that was to be warried and avoided. That was when the want to go away from this shrivelness surfaced above the marshy shallow of her mangled thoughts. She sought the wolf, who appeared to be waiting beside that same column she had noticed, his paws crossed before him and his face firm, yet there was no disappointment or annoyance, just patience and… something unfamiliar and unrecognizable.

Perseverance, she had to keep on going. No matter what, she had to push through it all, if not for herself, at least for Nick whom she got into this mess, wherever he was. Her choices had consequences and she had to eat them up. Surrender would mean cowardice, it'd mean that her courage would appear false and masked. That wasn't going to happen, thus her tired legs began shuffling forward, while she kept close to the rim of the abyss, until the abutment of the gaping hole was reached. Nothing was changing from the surroundings, only the air was getting worse, the blur of her vision: Continuously degrading.

That was when her malfunctioning eyes moved to the loud machine and thick black cables that were sucking into it like leeches to blood. There were so many indicators for who knows what, pressure, voltage, current and things she didn't understand. Some were working, others were broken, while the many buttons, plugs and switches remained in dust, grime and cobwebs, showing the age and disrepair the machine was left to go through. Yet _it_ showed courage, it wasn't stopping, as the enclosed space of glass stood strong where the green crystals saluted, hummed in rhythm. They looked magnificent, a sight unseen now-marveled, while getting her brain to want more, as the light fed inside her circular pits of countless nerves receptive.

Maybe there was a label there she could read and find out what that was, she just needed to get close due to her smeared vision. The posters had mentioned that these gems were the future and it seemed to have been a long time ago. Being still used meant that the contents were still in high demand and rich of energy, as those mechanized soldiers seemed to be running on that same resource as the engine itself. Her paws huddled to her chest, and she suddenly changed her course towards the mass of wires where the lever hung, which had been pulled down by Diablo. Her chest was nearly-fully exposed from the lack of buttons to hold the shirt together. There was this sound of whirring that began increasing from her side, but it fainted as the ringing just made her deaf with the torment increasing with every step, yet her curiosity, her adventurous side overcame the instinct of self-preservations, the want to know and explore, the need to see and understand. She felt like her kit-self.

What made her a mammal being overcame everything nature had engineered her to be. Again she broke nature's expectations, yet again she proved it wrong. Defiance against the established genetic order.

Apathetic awareness, nothing else mattered, not her decency or her health or her life, just her unsatisfied hunger for answers. For a moment it blocked the illness, while her breath stopped as she was very close now to the console and controls of the capsulated vessel of hollow life. But then, she was met with leathery black and something long and bushy in which she lost her vision, as it pushed into her face. A forest of hair and fluff, which got her to stop and move back. The trapdoors began closing with vibrations, which kept her attention, until the wind wobbled in front of her and prickled her to turn her attention to Diablo, who was looking at her with disapproving glare that had barely-visible motes of concern.

She wanted to push by him but saw his slow gesture of his pointer finger that got her to look at the directed spot, which was at the mechanized soldier whose overyelled minigun was spinning with a tinted-red glow from behind the insulated cables and indicators of itself. The chest of the big mammal had several opened windows small from where many sharp lasers were pointed at Judy, the windows looked like small bunkers... Now that, that got her to stop whatever she was further thinking of doing, and her beaten mind finally managed to kick back some sense into her, thus she pulled the shirt together to hide the abundance of visible fur, and she moved in front of Diablo and towards the metal stairs, while trying not to groan and whimper from the shaking violence that was stinging her every being.

At last, the despair that had reigned previously like a mad king flew in her stream and began bleaking the vessels of order, chilling them with impotence and aiding the infested air in bringing her down in the form of a storm of thick and slimy tar.

 _W-what's happening to me…_

Affliction grasped her heart, and she hurried towards the stairs, without even caring to peep over to the elephant who was just shortly going to have had filled her body with hundreds of massive holes. Her paw reached for the old and tall column and she supported herself there, so she could catch her empty breath. The trod that was just several meters felt like a full morning jogging session at the highest capacity, while her pumper's beat was actually normal, even fainter than what was the usual rhythm. Why wasn't it reacting to her need of oxygen-deprived blood? Her eyes scoured the side of the machine and that was when she saw the backside of the chaotic room. There was this big cistern-like boiler with big, rusty pipes going in every direction, while there was wetness around the edges of the unkempt which was streaking towards ducts meant for such issues.

The air ached near those rounded metal rows with bolts, which meant that they were used for probable heating. But then there were these big machines from which wires spewed out, some cut, others whole but distraught. Some of the equipment was totally wrecked and the only one that seemed to be in use was less than the fingers on her paw. It looked old, hell, it looked anachronistic as there were tape recorders, punched cards and things she didn't even know a name to give…

Touch was felt on her shoulder, which got her to flinch and get away from the unwelcomed invasion with a light growl and drilling flame. It was Diablo and he was holding a rounded green capsule in his opened paw, paw that was reaching over to her. His head motioned to her to take it, but she wasn't going to trust him, it could be poison for all she knew. But wasn't there enough poison in her system, whatever this thing was?

"Then fucking die," he snapped and even moved back, as if his patience was stretched to a breaking point. His reaction was unexpected, but how could she just blindly trust him with this… Yet, as another throb almost toppled her down on the peeling, cold floor in a coughing manner, she snatched the pill from his padded paw and gulped the unknown substance in detest and dryness that scratched her throat.

Diablo began walking up the cold stairs that lacked any sort of railing, and after a few deep breaths, she shook her head and slowly tried to go after him. But she wasn't getting any better, the sickness was spreading relentlessly, thus her paw reached for her belly as she put pressure on the twirling twisting inside. She moved her gaze at the elephant one more time to try and spot any indication of who that was or at least, what it was. Focus was attempted at the rows of bunkers around the soldier's chest, but the constant defocusing of her vision got her to grumble and begin going up carefully the steep-looking steps. She wanted to keep herself decent, but she didn't have a third paw to keep the shirt together, thus forfeited her efforts of civility and slowly clambered up with all paws on deck towards where the blackened texture of rock could be seen. There was light and part of the red catwalk.

The column where she was supporting herself from falling like a lifeless tree ended, and she was now hesitant to make another step, but as she saw a hefty bunch of wires hanging near, her desperate mind conjured the idea to hold onto that. The good luck happened was when she took the step and actually didn't fall. She stopped and put her paws before herself and saw that the shaking was as if sitting on an old truck engine. It got her consternation festered to squeeze in strangulation around her heart. Had he poisoned her? Maybe it was with something when he had touched her. With a whimper, she heaved her legs up and continued the journey of struggle.

Diablo was waiting with paws in his jacket's pockets on the summit. Her head slowly moved at the cranking machine which's backside was riddled with plugs, holes, giant capacitors and conduits, as if it were infested with small pox of metal and fibers and steel. It sizzled and spurted and glowed, it actually looked… alive… But that was insane, how could a machine be alive? At last, she reached the dimly lit summit, which continued forward into a passage of rock where lamps hummed and flickered on the top sides, while this new sound of continuous buzzing was getting louder the more ground was covered by her tired feet.

They passed through another checkpoint with guards and heavy blastdoors, tho at least now there was no issue with her presence as the mechanized soldiers just ran this laser-guided check around both their bodies. Well, Diablo's out-of-time cellphone was brought up as an issue but he had given them spit and insults to their attempts of confiscating the ancient communications equipment.

They continued onwards, until reaching a clearing, where the brown and black rock formed a cavernous passage that led far and straight with these steel beams of red color and countless bolts arching in support of the tall ceiling intimidating. In the middle of it was something like a platform connected with hydraulics, wires and joints to the rocky top and nearby tangible sides that acted as supports. Surprisingly, it was rather warm. It appeared that they were in the upper half of the cavern, as the sides underneath exposed these long rows of tall infrastructure of steel beams and bridges rectangular that were supporting it all, while thick and tight cables serpented through them and into the right spots of the machinery sizzling loud, be it in the tall horns of the circuit breakers or the giant transformers with their heavy bodies and radiator-like sides that were buzzing like overgrown swarms of furious wasps.

She glanced at Diablo for confirmation to what they were doing there, but he didn't even look at her as he began striding towards the awaiting platform that was surrounded by all this noise and crackling. There were no guards in sight, until she noticed such, ones that were on a vantage point that had been dug into the rock on the side above, one that had an incredibly heavy machine gun with rockets and sandbags around it. It actually looked like a cannon, and the cables attached to it were an odd addition. It overlooked the passage as if it were a border to another world. The mammals manning that post became visible but they were just in normal uniforms like those from before, not one equipped in modifications and armor… just earmuffs that without must've been like murder to stay where they were, as Judy was already feeling the loudness trying to replace her brain.

Above, just above her head, were these strange circular and protruding formations that resembled again those of fortified positions with small gaps, tho nothing visible was poking out, nor could she see anyone in there… But who could even be there, hanging down with their heads in such small space…

The less-appalling guards didn't seem interested in her or the wolf and continued chattering in obscurity to the loudness, at least visibly. The pain in her frame was actually not as sharp as it was anymore… it was actually bearable, yet this was causing a new one that needed adjusting to. The pill had worked on whatever had entered her. But what was it? Radiation? But that wasn't curable by just a pill, and she would've had her lungs filled with dust that would've glowed like a microwave inside. No, it had to be something else, she hoped to be something else.

She tried to pop her ears of fade, before stopping just before the old and clingy platform that looked like a hazard ready to be accepted. Diablo had climbed in, which had caused it to sway left and right silently to the noise around. She saw him scorn at her to get in, but her mind got her to look around herself if she could somehow escape, but all she saw behind her were more fortifications in the rocks that had small gaps and unfriendly muzzles of different sizes pointed in an unsafe for-her direction.

Why was this place so thoroughly guarded, was covered transuculency the city of Zootopia got its power from, all that power for the revolutionary city being in such lack of care, a crest of degradation. What if it choked on its own soot, what would it take to rekindle the abused machinery of the past? And if it was so hazardous, what did that say about the rest of the integrated technology all around the city itself? Were they all being lied to…

Trust, it had turned into a sepulcher, a tote that she wanted to throw away into that same pit of bones, steel and oil.

 _Trust, Integrity, Bravery…_

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

\- _I nearly went over the set guideline of words, grghhh. Thing is, I'm kinda having to adapt and learn new tricks in writing that would help make the content better. We're on the right track, and soonishly AAC will see its glory!_

\- _Do check Tumblr or Twitter, where I'm holding a strawpoll for on which date you'd want chapter updates as well as some additional thingies, do please check it out!. Yes, smaller chapters mean quicker uploads. Sure I can miss a week, but no more than that will go above the sets of sets. Hopefully of course._

\- _Backstory chapter with Nick and Trsitan have been moved between C13 'Badge?' and the now-current C19 'The Long Con', as that was the original idea to begin with. Thanks for understanding, but it was a necessary addition and it didn't make any sense then, but it will now._

 **Social Links:**

\- **Twitter:** _InletReal_

\- **Tumblr:** _inlet-oc_

\- **Youtube:** _Inlet_

\- **Deviantart:** _markovas_

\- **MisterSmail's AO3 Page:** _Mister_Smail_

\- **MisterSmail's FanFiction Page:** _Mister Smail_


	31. Irisium

**Chapter Thirty-One**

 **Irisium**

The elements of creation, the compounds that compose them, the structures that bind them, the protons that guide them until their existence culminates into their final breath. Wonders of science, wonders of nature, just like the wonders of darkness and silence where beauty can be found to par if one just detaches themselves from the consciousness of animalistic instinct and rationale.

Being sentient beings, our drive to find use of that which carries such exceeds the limits of the imagination, thus feeding into creation and implementation. Such were the ideas of those in the past, such were the ambitions of those in the present. The question that would remain as the cemented judge in the middle of the divided road is if those ambitions will be able to reach the future unscathed and whole.

Judy peeled off her still-blurring exploration of her surroundings and shook her head in the decline of finding a way out from the position of current. Her mind calculated the distance where the gap of the platform and cavernous height stood, but she had this feeling that lacked confidence due to the lingering burns around her bruised body, as well as that which had made her nearly lose her mind's control.

Everso, she got to the edge from where tiny pebbles dropped to the sizzling coating of electrical infrastructure, and she pushed her body in a short leap with her strong legs. The air and gravity prickled in her underbelly, but her feet scraped the iron surface of the lightly-swinging transport old. Her ears clogged further and she had to pop them again, after which the metal gate was closed for safety, even if the word sounded funny to the reality she was in.

"Was that… radiation?" she shouted from behind Diablo and leaned against the peeling rods that surrounded them. But amidst her question she noticed how she was keeping her distance and that she didn't want to have a mammal close to her, yet she didn't invest much mind to the matter that was new to her behavior.

"Irisium. You'll look like a prisoner in the old system, don't know about the fuck now… You don't want to fucking know what else it fuckers up if you don't treat the fuckery," he actually answered in a faint yell that managed to find reach to Judy. She had never heard about that element, even if she forced herself to the chemistry table that she had the misfortune of having had to memorize from hydrogen to oganesson. But even as she murmured the table's contents quickly under her breath, nothing came up to that which was spoken a few breaths ago. So the craving of knowledge that her head sought, it got her trepidation of having a mammal close to her to lessen.

"What's that?" she gave inquiry to that got her ears to spring up and her face to scrunch painfully from the loud buzzing bees with copper bodies coiled. But Diablo pulled on an old lever at that blink of flow, and the platform budged to try and move, tho it failed and got stuck, thus Diablo put it in reverse and then forwards, hence some kind of material actually peeled from the track above and fell over both mammals. She grimaced and tried to bash away the dirt from her already-stained head, but the motion of movement was so fast that she hit her back at the barrier of the advancing platform. That got her guts to wringle as she grabbed onto the closest support possible, her head swinging down and noticing yet again all the spiral infrastructure of electrical equipment that was too much to count. Mammals could even be seen down there, they were pretty small from the tall height she was at…

Coils of copper, conductor bundles meant for regulations of efficiency, bare cables of magnetic intensities and so much more that was unknown to words and mind. A sea of power, a sea of energy, a sea of future, a sea of progression that had made the past's achievements redundant, archaic.

"Green gold, baby! Tis why they dug this shithole in the first damn of fucks!" he chuckled and attracted her attention, yet he was with his back to her. Her mind cleared the consternation and noise of the air, and she tried to muster her courage back with an inhale that had too many errors of burnt plastic and other materials to the likes of expired electronical components. There was this heat all around her now, it even felt kinda searing, but it wasn't going over the threshold of what she had gone through anyways, the dulling effects of the pain all around her having acted as a sort of amateur anesthesia.

"What happened back there?" He stopped with a grind of claws against the short enclosure of the platform, while she tried to get on the other side where he was stood. But at her attempt, the platform banged and shook violently in motion, which got her to reach the desired destination in a thump of hearts. Her eyes were met with more of the same below, with the new additions of the thick cables now going into the cavernous walls in many holes. She grabbed on and tried to look at the diabolical wolf. Surprisingly, he was staring down at her with a barely twitching mouth, as if what she had asked was something wrong and unjustifiable beyond recognition, which was as such in her current circumstances of knowledge about these secretive relationships and systems that were taking place in this mysterious and unexplored for-her world.

"The moment you realize you don't know shit is when you realize you don't know fuckshit. I shit you not! There are fucks that you aren't supposed to fuckle about. So you will take that shit and gulp it the fuck down!" He finished with a very harsh gnarl that was drowned in the relentless buzzing of the carpet of electrical bees beneath them, while his menacing stance got her ears to dig into her back and, to her carried determination about the subject, her breath to be exhaled in despondency.

Her paws huddled close to her exposed chest and she felt more alone than ever in a place she couldn't find her spot in, a place that carried so many questions, yet all she was getting was animosity, intimidation and antipathy. But her scowl overtook her and she shouted back at the wolf, nevertheless.

"Does that small engine power up all this?" she asked through a gesture that summed everything beneath them, to which Diablo raised his brows and actually snorted. The rocks were old and dusty at their edges and cavities of time, while bolts and holes drilled in the forgotten past remained as a reminder of mammality's strive for control and crave for advance in the form of lights, vents and pipes that were in the safety of distance to the sizzling invisible water magnetic.

"Ever seen an iceberg?" he asked a bit too quietly amidst the drilling in her ears, yet she caught it somehow in the luck of dices, and raised her ears, which got them to fall quickly as the sounds were a bit too much to bear.

"Not in person, bu-"

"So you fucking know it. That small fuckity thing, it's the tip of the fuckberg," he gesticulated in slight vigour, but as she gawked at him with a somewhat opened mouth, his murmur passed through his body, and he gave another comparison, "the Dark Web, ever heard of it, kiddo? Used to be on the same fuckwhat past, but they asscunted it down the fuckers, took it all under their fucking veto of _rights_ and fuckses," Diablo trailed off somewhat dreamily, but she wasn't able to understand what the heck he was babbling about. Dark webs and icebergs, tho what she managed to cope with was that the machinery was actually underneath, if she hadn't been misled yet again.

"So, you use it to dispose your bodies there?" she directly inquired without allowing the distaste to climb out her mouth about the opinion of her mind of that what was exercised here.

"Not usually, it's the fucking maintenance shaft," he slightly growled in hint to her questions, but she decided to push through it, everso. She wasn't going to be denied answers, she was going to be levitated and enlightened! Even if that was to be about information that was making her skin trickle in awfulness.

"What do y-"

"Shut your fucked face!" he cursed with a pointed claw at her, which was too close to comfort, thus she even took some steps away from the dangerous mammal, who wasn't showing signs of normality in his inconsistent behavior. None of these mammals she had met had any consistency whatsoever but that of primal savageness, with tints of progression that was all around their bodies in the forms of clothes, armor and technology. Otherwise… She decided to look away and cease the thinking of her cogs, she wanted to try and funnel her energies elsewhere so that her own conclusions could be made when none were apparently viable otherwise. If she had to find information on her own, then so be it.

It was so strange and terrifying what time could do to anything, to grind it to nothingness and create something new, yet that feeling was translated into curiosity and awe of what nature was capable of, of what it was engineered to do, of what it had engineered itself to do.

"Those fuckwits that seem to be in control… they usually aren't," what he uttered from close her side, it got her to swoosh hard and almost hit her nose with her meaty ear from the trepidation that there was a mammal close to her, the recent experiences of such making her nose to overexert itself and her fists to go up in readiness. "It's either a façade in whorely makeup… or it is something fuckingly temporary, a delusion for disgustingy-fucked comfort." His fingers fixed some of the fur on his head in a combing fashion, while she took a step away and just stared at him through bias conviction that he wanted to harm her.

"You may think you have control over your fucky life… that is until you don't. You have to adapt or, you will die. Push that into your thick, fucking head, you fucked-munching psycho." At last he looked at her as he finished, but in a baffling way of amusement as his eyes were dancing in the fires of satisfaction amidst the rhythm of electrical humming. She didn't want to believe him that she didn't have control over her life and that she had to adopt to the circumstances and just let that control to flee, it sounded… like hard betrayal to herself, almost bilious. It sounded like the summed negativity of what everyone had spewed at her from the ground zero that was when she had decided to make her own choices, to maintain her own path.

"Easy for you to say… when you're in control…"

"Pha! Fucks on a dickstick, I'm such a damn hypocrite… want me to give you my pistol?" he asked in this mocking-yet-irritated tone that followed a motion which pulled out his gun." Why not try and take it and see what happens?!" he taunted with this insanity that was roaming his old eyes, but he had aimed the gun right at her and the space between them was now just a fraction of what it had been. But she was trapped…

"Try! I'll beat the fucks out of you until you can wake up so I can do it again and _again_ and AGAIN. Until you start doing it yourself to fuckery!" His paw was shivering, saliva was falling from his gnarled maw where she noticed many cuts of healed scars. On the side she could see cracked teeth, while the fur around his chest had missing spots that exposed skin. Her breath was stuck in her windpipe like a rocky crumb of bread, yet Diablo snapped away from her and returned from where he had surely felt insulted. She believed that the wrong word would've set him up to just shoot her there and push her into the sizzling mass of magnetic water, where surely she would've burned into the intensity of trillions of trillions of electrons.

"If you're that fucking stupid, you'd try to take control back, so it would seem that your retarded ancestors have fucked you over _well_. Control needs to be earned, so shut the fuck up and don't point fuckly fingers!" he growled with a distorted echo that lost its way in the noisiness, while they entered a shadowy part of the passage the platform was now rumbling through.

Steam audibly vented from the pipes in sync with the hisses and crackles, and she dared to look back, which got her eyes to widen and paws to hug her closer, she couldn't even see the outpost where the soldiers had been, how far had this old unreliable platform taken them to wherever it was even going towards?

" _Ehm_ … what's going to happen to… me?"

"Jump off the railing if you want to be in control, fuck if I give a rodent's shithole," he shot which got her to look away and down at the lighted pathways between the transformers. She could always do that or try to run, but where would she run to? There was only one way, and it was down, while her head gave her danger signals to the deadliness of the invisible fields that touched with their transparent swirls of energies… Everything seemed a choice without a cause, all was pointless and frustrating, it made her heart to clench in anguish as she gulped her need to rebel, to shake her constrictions.

They were beginning to close in on some kind of a formation of buildings that was still in the distance. If her life was at risk, did it matter if she probed too hard? "So you just kill mammals freely, why would you do that?" Her aggressive question managed to bring Diablo again at her diapason, who actually almost stumbled his hold on the rusty extensions around them, his sharp claws scraping for hold.

"To keep the peace. Those that try to brake it must fucking go. I can't contain a huge-fucking district when everyone is trying to kill each other or form their fucking savage tribes like fuckly animals. Am I supposed to be forgiving and compassionate? You break the rules, you get the worst sentence. I don't give a flying shit if you got 10 kits behind your ass. That's what the Keepers are, we keep everything contained."

"Like a government?"

"No, like damn assfucking adult-babysitters. The fuck else? We provide safety and you will give us what we need in return, that's how the whole fucking world works and this is how this place is kept from destroying itself. But because you're a stubborn fucker, _you_ won't be a part of it." His words sounded as if repeated many-many times due to the fluidity and confidence that they we brought with. She was sure that she wasn't the first to receive his speech like that, tho it was more personal than detached as she thought about it. Everso, the methods of control, they sounded like from a third world country that was being ruled by a warlord.

"That's barbaric!" The ending of this long travel was in sight, which looked like an outpost as it had something like walls and towers with nicely-conjoined pieces of defense. Above it was something of the same sort but upside down and much smaller in breadth. The arcs of the steel beams that supported the cavern's ceiling grew scarce at this incoming ending. So with the old came the new in the form of the scent that spoke machine oil and burnt diesel, which intensified with every second.

"This isn't Mammalia, asshole! This place is kept isolated for a fucking reason. That is the only way to run things here, anything else is set to fail fuckedly…" Diablo's tongue hesitated upon his sliced words, but he curled his lips and finished, " _like_ it has in the past. Now shut your facehole the fuck up!" He fixed his jacket and tried to pull the old lever as to reduce the speed of the expired transport, but it was stuck in place and didn't respond to his budges and yanks.

"Fuck you who made you, you fuckwhit of a dickshit mother fu-" The lever gave to depression, but they were already close to the end, and Judy saw that it was going to be a very rough stop, to which she grabbed on and held for her dear life, while some mammals on the side of the high ground scurried away from the incoming freight of brakeless past.

" _Suck_ my di-" Diablo tried to add, but the platform crashed into the emergency breaker that had been installed by intelligent minds in the past for just such occasions. The blood in Judy's head all moved towards that direction for a split moment, in which her head blurred in lack of responsiveness, while the loud screeching reduced as quickly as a blink that the old breakers above gave friction to an end.

The transport froze just where it was supposed to be, slightly within the outpost with solid ground underneath them. They were alive, and she felt as if she was given a round two of a beating prior taken in Happytown. Her lungs desired coughs, while the wolf was already up and was bashing the unmaintained equipment, giving curses of how he was going to come back with explosives and make it wish it was never put on schematics.

After Diablo had had his fill of spite at the silently-lifeless victim, he bashed the bony door with his leg in futility a few times, until his reason visibly came back and got him to use his paw on the mechanism that unlocked it, while Judy stood there and secretly surveyed the surroundings that mainly consisted of living quarters, tents, radio equipment and heavy defenses that were situated around the strategic walls. The mammals appeared well-equipped, the weaponry deadly and sophisticated. Surely this was the military again.

She followed in haste after the black wolf as he was gaining ground too fast, and she knew how well soldiers took liking to those who were not supposed to be at places such as this. None asked what had happened, yet that didn't stop them from staring at Judy, who felt self-conscious now that so many eyes were trained on her, thus her paw reached for her ruined button-shirt and pushed it up to cover as much fur as possible.

" _Need transport to HQ, right fucking now fleabags!_ " Diablo bellowed from surprisingly afar at several soldiers who were glaring at him with apathetical scorn. She was surprised to see that there were no ranks of privates amongst those around this place, while in a part of the living quarters that had been built with this strange black material, flickered the projection of what looked like a movie. Laughter resonated from that place and Judy was curious to see more, but she came in head-on collision with something cold, tough and unmovable. It hurt her already-damaged skull, and she grabbed her head with a hiss, yet her eyes were quick to give spotting to a burly femammle reindeer who Judy nearly mistook for a mammle if it were not for the lankier frame and softer face.

Judy awkwardly smiled and quickly corrected her course that which was towards the visible exit of the outpost. It had a big cannon with cables running towards the edge of where the city of electricity was residing and humming rather oppressed. She saw Diablo talking at the chest of an armored buffalo, a rather nerve-twitching sight that she presumed was the fact of Diablo's loss of sanity.

But as she closed quickly on the vicinity, where Diablo was visibly even spitting as he yelled, she noticed that the protruding chest of the buffalo had what looked like a construction, which slightly resembled a bunker, yet its windows appeared from thick and clear glass, while the insides had equipment and furniture. There was a formally dressed mammal with an officer's cap inside, an opossum…

"Don't give a fuck if they just came back, I'm taking a vehicle or I'm cutting off access to the garages. Who the fuck are you even, you joke of a mammal?!"

"If you can wait for an hour, we can suit your needs. I'm Colonel An-" the magnified voice came from the loudspeakers above the fortified construction, but Diablo's voice was louder and more overpowering.

"Don't give a fuck what they've labeled their bastard you! I'm taking it now, try and stop me you bootlicking joke of a fucking fuck," Diablo cut in and motioned to Judy to instantly follow him, while he swished and trod towards the nearest armored jeep, from which a very battered and bloody anteater was just getting off from. Judy glanced at the small frame of the colonel, who was wearing a formal disgust within, yet it was leaked without fair justification all on Judy, thus she quickly dashed around him and his silent-dangerous carrier.

"Get in there and start this scrap up, right now, analninja," Diablo growled and pushed the anteater against the jeep, who appeared dejected and totally detached from reality, to which the soldier nearly drew her rifle at the wolf with her crimson-stained paws, but quickly dropped it as she registered who that was. Apparently all knew this self-centered and aggressive maniac, and none dared to oppose him, despite all the heavy weaponry and numbers overpowering. Only those heavily modified mammals had given the impression that his word was as useless as the promises of government officials.

The backside door was opened, and Diablo waited for Judy, giving her the curtesy to get in first, which she didn't take as a good sign, but her trepidation of all those eyes still following her, it made her unconditionally to just do as he asked of her, as it appeared that things weren't flowing that well between him and the military that which now actually had the emblem of Mammalia's pride on the sides of their shoulders, with the colors of red and blue filling in the shapes of two triangles facing off from one another. They were severed by a black line in between them that gave way to their borders. In a way, Judy always saw it like it was the up-and-down buttons of an elevator, but who was she to know the metaphorical meanings of those who had made it, with the historical justice of creativity and expressionism. After all, it was her country's flag, her nationalistic pride.

Her legs sprung her into the heavily-equipped jeep, and she was wet with even more scents of gunpowder, air of tobacco, oil, rot, piss and burned electrical components. The seating was big and cramped with many oversized casings of spent bullets, as well as some kind of batteries that were thrown everywhere around. She stood in the middle of the backseat like that until the door behind her was crashed into its hidden hinges, and Diablo pushed her aside as he wolfed to the shotgun seat where blood was smeared everywhere in a dried fashion, a big hole on the front, thick windshield that was giving way to air to get in.

But it wasn't just from there where air touched the insides, the top of her head felt the coldness as well, and she saw the broken turret which's entirety had been blown away by something unknown to her. Again, blood everywhere around that spot of impact. Judy moved away from the stains and hesitantly seated herself into what looked like an unscathed woolen blanket that she, pushing away some solid batteries, gladly put over her body that felt so cold and just… nearly broken.

"What you waiting for, your ass to eat up all the fucks? Go!" Diablo slapped the anteater behind the head, which got her to unglue herself from the fake reality she had zoned in to, thus reaching for the starting mechanism that Judy didn't notice how it looked or worked. The engine glowered in strained attempts, but it managed to find a spark and the front boomed loudly with vibrations shaking the thick windows, shards from the whole falling onto Diablo's sneering lap. Judy nestled herself deeper into the comfortable and oversized blanket, while trying to spot more details about the jeep, which apparently had screens on the steel-encased seats, one of which was cracked and pixelated beyond recognition. Ah, cameras that showed the surroundings with detectors and options of control.

" _Attention MR units at Sector G. Anti-civil activities have been detected. Isolate, liquidate, report."_ The radio from the middle of the encased dashboard crackled, but nobody took heed to its lifeless voice, only Judy who was brought back to that moment in time where she thought it was going to be the end of ends, and it gave her these awful chills.

"The hell is with this filth?" Diablo asked actually with a normal tone and an amount of discomfort. But nothing came as an answer, and thus he repeated with authority that made Bogo look pale in comparison, "I asked you something, Sergeant!"

The anteater jittered as she came to a stop in front what looked like to be the doors that lead outside of the outpost, it looked like some kind of transparent barrier that was making the air wobble. "Yes, Sir!" she whimpered in a way that showed her lack of thinking and robotically-programmed responses.

"The fu- I'm not your Sir, did shrapnel get into your fuck-shaped head? I asked you the fuck's this shit?"

"SFC knows, he can tell you… right, Moe?" she asked and looked at the seat Diablo was at, yet it was as if she was looking at someone else and wasn't registering the baffled wolf.

"Oh, fuck me…"

"He'll tell you… he knows, he always knows the best for us, right Packie?" she asked yet again and giggled ghastly, which was turning Judy's mind in disarray, yet the prickling in her heart was somehow happening, despite her not understanding fully the situation. Were these her squad mates whose blood was filling the insides of this rugged vehicle?

"Listen… ugh," Diablo sighed and at last dropped his tough-guy act, his back slumping into the ruined seat and his paw going over his eyes. "The more you try to lie to yourself, the more fucked it gets… Just, just let it go and… gulp it down, just _accept_ it." But the femammle didn't react and Judy moved her head to the side, so that now she could see the partial face of the anteater that reeked of unconfidence and delusions. What was seen was that a big piece of the helmet was missing in the form of dangling and cut wires on the side of the femammle's head with gauze and dried sanguine dark. This mammal was not fit to drive, and yet…

"Where is your squad?" Diablo asked in a normal tone, just slightly higher than that of the engine that crackled in disrepair. Judy looked up into the darkness of the cavern, but quickly lost interest as nothing could really be seen but that at the front that the many headlights exposed to the eye.

"They were tired, had to take a nap. Left them at the bridge. They're just tired, just tired…"

"What happened?" Diablo drilled, which would've seemed like lack of empathy, but Judy was noticing his lack of anger. He genuinely wanted to know.

" _Ughm_ … a quick run! Everything's fine… fine… No M.I.A, they'll be fine…" she smiled hopelessly, "we went to investigate Sector G… and there was one of _them_. Shut up!" she yelled in a shriek that squeezed Judy into reality and made Diablo to reach for his gun. The anteater was looking in dejection towards no one, but her eyes appeared as if there was someone in front of her. This mammal was not fit to drive, why was Diablo being an idiot? A part of Judy wanted to intervene and be the activist she always saw herself as, but the moment she flexed motion to her muscles was the moment the pain drained all her will to do _anything_.

"It put a fight, but I got them out, they'll be fine, just tired… just tired…" she finished at last with a desperate scoff, but Judy saw Diablo's shaking of head that told her that those soldiers were more than just tired... And this behavior made Judy's heart to overpower her own issues and get her eyes to slowly fill, but not to find leak.

"What do you mean one of them?"

"Those things! Mechanical… infantry! But looked very old, scrapped and nothing compared with those we have. But we're recon, we're just recon… Couldn't penetrate its armor, it was so quick… but we're fine, they'll be fine, just tired… I'm sure, I need t-to b-be…" The anteater couldn't finish what came to be mumblings, and her paws hastily grabbed for her bloodied head where she just squeezed as if trying to cave in her skull.

The semi-armored vehicle began moving into the side where it bumped into the excavated rock, the paint and metal grinding and making the whole frame scrunch from the speed that was. Diablo snatched for the wheel and spat curses at the unstable sergeant, whose very long muzzle was withdrawn close to her body, and Judy's ears could hear some kind of words in between the stifled loudness on the side that had ceased to be due to the wolf's quick intervention.

Diablo's free fist plunged on top of the soldier's head and the vehicle swayed once more amidst the pit of darkness they were tunneling through, so that everything clanked and casings even fell from the top on Judy's head. It kinda hurt and that was actually the most baffling part. Yet, she didn't really care what was going on anymore. The warmth of this thick woolen blanket was just, heavenly.

"Get in rails you fuckloony!"

"Y-yes… yes, Sir!" She grabbed the wheel again and the engine groaned so damn loudly that for a moment Judy could only hear… silence. Judy wanted to look out the window, to see what was out there, but it was kinda higher than the usual margin for her species and what could be seen was still just the boring color of nothing.

" _Attention all units at Ground Zero. Inoculate the perimeter. Autonomous judgement in effect. Convoy in progress._ " Again that same coldness of monotone came through the lines of signals, it had this aura that was just so wintery, distant and unwelcoming. The formality and tone was just on another plane of existence. Even if Judy always rooted for professionalism, this time she just wanted the bitter voice to just break out of need of following that statute, to just be who they were supposed to be…

She snuggled closer to the wool kindness, her eyes closed half-way into the leather of the seat and the burned pixels of the malfunctioning screen. Ideas of escape flooded her mind, but doing that in a speeding vehicle wasn't her brightest of ideas, as her body was already beaten and she just didn't trust herself to even physically jump what she was sure she usually could.

Amidst all the abuse and suffocating evil, she actually found the comfort to just forget about it all by tucking her ears to her body and just letting go of her thoughts that were replaced by the creaks around the frame of the jeep and the solid elements that the tires were excavating through friction behind them. Just like a trip back home… as if she was going back home on the back seat of her parents' truck on the bumpy off-road. Country music on the radio, known faces, siblings next to her, comfort from the busy day's exhaustion, incoming rest at the end of the journey sprawled long and full of dusking red light…

That was a bright thought, it actually made her smile in delusion, it made her lose control to dejection that stained her crippled cheek in the form of a _sanguine_ …

Tear.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

\- _I nearly went over the set guideline of words, grghhh. Thing is, I'm kinda having to adapt and learn new tricks in writing that would help make the content better. We're on the right track, and soonishly AAC will see its glory!_

\- _Do check Tumblr or Twitter, where I'm holding a strawpoll for on which date you'd want chapter updates as well as some additional thingies, do please check it out!. Yes, smaller chapters mean quicker uploads. Sure I can miss a week, but no more than that will go above the sets of sets. Hopefully of course._

\- _Backstory chapter with Nick and Trsitan have been moved between C13 'Badge?' and the now-current C19 'The Long Con', as that was the original idea to begin with. Thanks for understanding, but it was a necessary addition and it didn't make any sense then, but it will now._

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	32. The Keepers

**Chapter Thirty-Two**

 **The Keepers**

Time passed by, nothing else was said during the trip of trips, while the radio would crackle and that metidious and brittle voice of Command would browbeat orders and statutes, utterly bereft of grace or heart. No contrite, no soul. Judy's body was aching still, but this new warmth was so appreciated and liked, so much that her eyes were becoming drowsy. But the stark knowingness of her surroundings, which were stained with death, pain and the smell of decay, gunpowder and other foul chemicals, it gave her enough premonition to keep herself in the objective world. Murderers, soldiers, abuse and hate… All nestled in the tight confines of these cavernous realm of darkness.

" _Attention MR56, unauthorized vehicle miscount will result in off-district relocation. Report activity to commanding officer immediately._ "

"How'bout you report fucking yourself, bitchface!" Diablo yelled into the transmission receiver and threw it at the driving mammal, who didn't even flinch. The anteater's eyes were widely opened and goggling at the makeshift, depreciating rocky road that had these dug paths, where many vehicles had given their imprint known onto many times throughout history grooved.

" _Individual, insubordination is punishable by effluvium suspension. Identify._ "

" _D_ , like the dick I'll shove in your puss-filled mouth when I fucking comeupthere."

" _Individual, desist use of government property or citizen status will be revoked. Final wa-_ "

"You're getting a hard-on for me, aren't you, fuckly overfucked whore!"

" _Unit MR56, detain and extract Individual at discretion. Acquiescence is compulsory."_ Diablo's aged ambers flashed into the anteater, who was staring at him with disciplined demeanor, while Judy sleepily just bore witness to it all. For once, she was rather content of letting events just take their meander, to let them be without her getting to sacrifice parts of herself. She liked her cocoon of safety more than what had brought her all these illnesses to begin with.

"Don't you fucking dare!" But after that, the only sounds that came were those of conflict, grunts and yells, as the anteater brought out what looked like a sizzling-hot… it looked small and like a taser, but it was surely much more efficient than those Judy had seen at the ZPA. The loud crackle of electricity nearly managed to graze Diablo, but he was quick and grabbed onto her wrist and pushed in the gap of the dividing middle. "Drop it, fuckedface, drop it before I blow your fucked head!"

Judy felt that squeezing in her guts yet again at seeing the old pawgun aimed at the soldier's bloodied head, but for the first time since ever, she just put the blanket over her eyes and decided to be ignorant. The vehicle crashed repeatedly to the side, and the motion of movement lowered. But all those harsh grinds and vibrations were starting to get to Judy's head, and she just nestled deeper into the warmth of her heat saved.

There was more conflict from the front, there were vibrations, but all was muffled by the self-induced blindness of the doe, who wanted to pretend that she was at Bunnyburrow, or at her awful apartment… or at that moment with Nick at the abandoned airport… or with Nick at that underwater cave… Heh, surely all of those separate instances were even separately better than where she was at. Alone, vulnerable, beaten, used and totally clueless.

There was yet another loud crash and the muffle of voices just disappeared. She liked that, despite the lingering ringing that Maker's Breath and all those iron forests were still echoing in the sides of her troubled temple. For a moment she lost consciousness into rest, but a loud _clash_ came to her rear, and the shield of her warmth was removed from her body to the sight of a frenzied raven wolf with the nostril of death pointed into her head.

"Get-up, get-fucking _up_! Won't be asking again, now- _now_ -thefucknow!" he commanded, but she couldn't overlook the dread in her to the sight of him, to the instinctive fear that had frozen her existence and had made her nose wiggle endlessly. In a way, her mind didn't know exactly what was going on, as it had been tricked into believing that there was safety, while there never was any in this awful box of war nefarious. But then Diablo's hate lowered and he looked self-consciously at his gun, which he then withdrew with a sigh.

"C'mon, rabbit… don't test me right now," he mumbled as if ashamed at his actions, and pulled on the blanket, but Judy was holding onto it for her dear life. It didn't take him long to understand her issue as he reached for his inner pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out this bulky knife that began closing in on Judy, yet she didn't close her eyes and just glared at the wolf through the reality of desperation. But instead of the coldness touching her, it did so the blanket, where it cut the threads of wool, until a patch was carved out and pushed into the exposed chest of the exhausted doe. It still appeared a bit oversized for her, but at least she could now carry it with her. She accepted the offering and put it over her back and front, looking as if rolled into a burrito with her head poking out.

The exit from the vehicle crunched on her shins that shanked all her nerves, but she gulped the pain down and quickly tried to take in the visibility around her. There were many thickly-encased cables bolted to the walls, with lights and concrete infrastructure at the end of the cavernous passage. Behind them was nothing but ink. There was also this thing, a skeleton of the war machine that had melted into the rocks. It probably was a tank of the past, now appearing to be a deformed relic that looked as if was forged from plastic, maybe it was?

Diablo was away from her and was sassing something to the soldier, whose side of the broken helmet could now be scrutinized even clearer. It looked like lots of wires running around that missing patch of material, while behind that there was no actual fur… looked like bare skin. Everso, Judy carefulled closer, so she could hear anything important, but they stopped talking shortly when she had made that decision. Judy was gestured to follow, but she waited and just wondered at the psychologically broken soldier.

But instead of remaining motionless or giving a start of returning to base, the equipped and sanguine soldier actually reached for her rifle and wobbly began aiming it at the back of the wolf, to which Judy nearly yelled at Diablo to take cover, yet… she just stared in the strange wording of: Intrigue. Why try and be a catalyst to everything around her, when she could just give it the chance to be resolved itself, a natural… selection…

" _Ev-v-verything's t-t-ak-ken c-c-are o-of…_ " the soldier was mumbling and Judy could see insanity between the fissures of the visored eyes. A crackle flew in the air… the indistinguishable voice of the broken helmet reached Judy's still-ringing ears, to which the soldier instantly dropped the oversophisticated assault rifle. Judy didn't wait to be told and just sprinted limpily behind Diablo and away from the unstable pool of mammal that was now behind, while feeling the consternation aimed at the possibility of getting a bullet in her back, just like Diablo was going to prior some seconds ago. That helped in the efforts of escape that were making her thighs and bones flare. At least her vision had stopped shifting in blurs. The goodness in her wanted to tell Diablo of what was just going to transpire, but she shrugged it off as if it was just her mind playing illusions unfunny.

There were two choices in bright glares of lights blinding: One was this big hole with asphalt that led down, covered by the sides with thick reinforced steel columns and opened blastdoors that hung from atop like a predator's starving jaw; there was this big sensor-like equipment that blinked with infrared lights as well. The other was this blockade that appeared nearly like that of the military outpost, but it was way more rugged and improvised in terms of used materials, as they were ranging from wood to metal and… rocks within framed iron holders. But this fort was reaching the shorter ceiling where it was like as rooted into, and from between the mounting points of the tinted glass skulking, there nested heavy weapons meant only for that which was the usual in this forsaken place.

Her eyes caught surveillance in the form of cameras in between the fortification and the continuation of better and actual road. It was following their movements… Judy slowly stopped at the sizeable doors of thick mix of materials scavenged, and noticed Diablo's tail hanging low on the ground, which was a first with the overconfident wolf. His ears were the same, and she angled her head in quiz, but then the doors began grinding open and she saw more world that moved and breathed.

It was like the military camp, but this one was in a way worse of a condition, and the mammals that moved about looked scruffy, unkempt and poorly equipped. She walked glued to the wolf, despite her strain to keep up, due to her still-roaring bruises and other injuries that the engine room had worsened. She noticed every single mammal, who walked by, to acknowledge Diablo with some kind of gesture or short word, yet nothing more came to be, and she even wondered if they could see her below his tallness.

Was she invisible?

The air rippled with flaps, which got Judy to snap and linger on a group of equipped bats, with long midnight wings, who went up to the ceiling and towards the upper level of the compound that continued in altitude within the rocks, with more buildings of different sorts and uses, tho now ones attached to the ceiling were visible, surely meant for the flying mammals prior seen. There were a lot of crates scattered everywhere around the camp. One was opened widely and exposed lots of fresh-looking onions. A pile of cement bags lay on the other side of the crates with an unmaintained tarpaulin dangling by the current of cold air that tried to enter through Judy's cloak in failure to her smiley surprise.

Diablo led her through a narrow alley surrounded by more of the heavy wooden crates, which gave turn through the solid sable rock, then was a chain-link door that rattled as it was opened, and towards what appeared to be… fancy polished stairs with cozy lights on both sides. Her eyes noticed a label _Exit_ when she turned around from hence they had come, exit to what? The stairs, they were a bit too much to Judy's liking and insufficient height, but she managed to get to the top with tears in her eyes, nevertheless.

The top gave new surroundings that consisted of carpeted flooring, plank-riddled walls with artsy pictures and old-fashioned furniture. The warmth was significantly light years away from the threshold of dissatisfactory, while the air tickled with the scent of age. This was the most hospitable place she had ever seen after her blackout in Happytown, and her eyes appreciated the old beauty all around her, especially the strangely-grotesque art that depicted furless… mammals? They resembled more-like monsters other than sentient mammal beings. Even the usual imagery of prisoners, she had seen on the web and ZPA, were of no match to what was depicted: Abnormal growth, deformations and wrinkled skin with these awful yellow warts. Her stomach growled, but it wasn't linked to any hunger within.

Closed doors marked the entrances of rooms or other corridors, while the double doors ahead were pushed opened by an unhealthy-looking mongoose. He was smaller even than her, and yet his body was just encased in equipment that made so much damn noise with every step. His muzzle had a nearly-depleted cigarette that was begging to be ashed. But the equipment itself had quite a lot of marks of damage and scarring, while the rusty eyes of the mammal looked exhausted and totally dejected, while his adorn-ruined assault rifle dangled behind him.

His paw moved up with one finger in the air as to give recognition to Diablo, but the mammal's head remained stoic and unrelenting to peak at either wolf or rabbit. Then the mongoose scratched his back as he reached the door to the rear, and then opened it, thus letting the sounds of hoarse laughter to persist for mere moments.

" _Millie! C'mon, we'd just startin' p-_ " the feminine voice was severed as the door thumped closed. How had Judy's ears missed those notes of sound before that? She needed to let them rest a bit until they'd get their radar-like efficiency back. All that screeching and grinding had damaged her awareness. She stole a reaction from Diablo, who had curled his lips in an expression of… was it actually compunction? It didn't last long tho.

They passed through the doors that were embellished with stalactites and some kind of skeletal bodies of strange creatures. The path after them was even fancier, as the flooring underneath the carpet was from reddish cedar planks, while the carpet felt silken and had the patterns of many that resembled parallel dynasties of stars, spiral lines and other keys to imagination. _Hmmm_ , the lack of coldness under her feet, the blanket around her exhausted and small body, it was in some ways… _pure_ heaven. There were no swinging cables or rusty pipes, no black rocks or deafening sounds, only the comfortable silence and tints of life around, while the light didn't flicker and was set in lantern-like lamps in the walls, which were bright and deaf with the soothing hum of electricity delightful.

On some places, where the boards would meet, there were inlayed ornaments that looked like sharp rock, while it all seemed different and never the same, as if it was all created by paw and not machine. It didn't look pristine, it was imperfect, yet whoever created this had given their all. Old but beautiful, behind its time, yet stylishly ahead. They neared another split in between, where the wall was caved in as if it was blown from the inside out, while its guts had the sculpture of two giant doors of rock and steel and more rock. Its joints were invisible as if such was a declaration that a way to open them was not viable.

The sculpture and unorthodox piece of art inside the wall got her to stop and just to gawk with widened lilacs, as now the details were pouring into her, the curves and edges and forms of mammal architecture. Some surfaces symmetric and slick, others rugged and unnatural, it looked like a secret entrance to another room of obscurity and time… A thump came by, which got her to side-glance at Diablo, who was gazing at the strange art himself, with paws grabbed behind his back and calculating ambers aimed forwards.

"Like it?" he asked after some scrutiny, like as if he hadn't seen someone in years. He glimmered at Judy with a raised brow, and vocality instantly tried to force itself in the form of a tingling beam, but her head moved away and at the sculpture before her. She didn't know what she was looking at, as the resemblance was one of familiarity, yet never seen in her entire life, something unique and furtive. This was… _new_.

"I… I don't know what it is…" she muttered, and Diablo snorted at her lack of cultural appropriation, which kinda annoyed her lips and made her to pull the wool cloak closer to herself.

"This is Bright's Fall, one of several fuckestries… Originally made to stop all access to the Noc and never opened since being fucked in the first of fucks. Dunno if it even can… Looks fuckier in real tho!"

"Who made this?" she pointed at the stone achievement of effort, time and persistence.

"Mammals who do fuck about with such things here. They don't care for recognition, all they want is to satisfy their needs. Fuckly pricks. But hey! It was a nice fucking present when I got here!" Amidst the ringing of her head, Judy managed to capture this closing cackling.

" _-That he's'a munchy and capable big guysie. Ha! Worst ride I had ever… Like ever! So I give him his skunky reward, hih._ "

" _Nooo! Really?_ " the cackling came yet again, with the source becoming visible in the form of a hyena, who was surely taller than Diablo, and a skunk next to him who was reaching his chest.

"You bet! He'll remember me for a monthsie. Serves him right an- hey, Didi!" the wide-hipped skunk exclaimed and gave a dash closer next to Judy, while she heard Diablo exhale with this sort of ringing irritation. Or was it ringing because of the ringing itself that she carried with her anyways?

"Whose's this poor little thingy? Did you find it in the gutter?" asked the skunk, who was wearing nothing but a nearly-transparent pink gown, which looked like the words just used by her own mouth.

"This _thing_ is none of your damn business, fartface." The tall hyena tried to greet Diablo as he stopped by the shorter, but he was quickly shut down with the protruding words of discipline and filth that were starting to strike Judy's nerve a lot, at least the spotted predator was clothed appropriately in a polyester jacket and informal wears well-kept. "Shut it, cacklefuck. _You_ , get the fuck out that _disgusting_ gown and police yourself for fucking duty! We're soon fucking moving to the Bazar with the convoys, and you're walking your overfucked ass around my headquarters like a _filthy_ fuckling whore."

"Want me out of it, _eh_?" the skunk asked with this jeering grin and just moved her painted-candy claw on her other shoulder, where the cloth was only being desperately held by the last strap. The hyena next to her tried to grab the in-motion night gown, but it just slid unceremoniously off her chubby body, exposing lewd furtattoos around her black chest and… well she was fully naked and had more definite such around her groin, to which Judy instantly recoiled and looked away in bashfulness.

"Put that _fucking_ rag on yourself, you undisciplined cockjuggler fucking-bitch!" Diablo spat and moved by Judy in a motion that made her feet prickle to the imagination her experience had recently taught her. Was he going to make an example of the skunk just like he had done with Brad? Diablo glowered over the skunk, his height casting a devouring shadow over her shorter body, and Judy slightly tried to spot what was going on in reluctance to the nakedness that was making her forfeit the struggle. She noticed the apprehensive hyena slowly reaching for the skunk and tapping her on the black and white shoulder, to which her lack of care to the predatory threat above translated into a shrugly-giggle, as she ducked for her gown and slowly slipped it up her strange body, while twitching her long tail bushless.

"Always humorous. Try not to choke on your _fucksies_ , Didi. You've always kept that tailsie where light don't shine. C'mon, _Cacklefuck_ ," she mockingly repeated at her companion, who dropped an actual low cackle that died in that very instant, as Diablo growled. She sidestepped, while the hyena versatilely moved quickly on her side, so that she was acting as a barrier between him and the intimidating tallness of wolf, who was only taller because the hyena had slumped his back. But instead of following onto her undertaken path, the skunk grinned like mad and quickly got in front of Judy, which got the bunny to recoil away from this sudden and aggressively-appearing course correction.

"I didn't sniff your namesie, dolly-bun? Surely that bully behind me won't mind some appropriate friendliness that he so much _forces_ upon us miserable dronesies!" she gesticulated and rolled circles in the air at the hyena, who had an expression of frustration and a failed attempt of hiding his amusement. Judy saw that Diablo wasn't instantly shooing the skunk away, so she bit her dry lip and _aaaahed_ in an attempt to formulate an answer.

"You're a mutesie? Want paper?"

"No-no, it's, _ughm_ -" Judy looked at Diablo for guidance, but he was just staring at the sculpture in the wall. Judy knew that giving away her real name could get her in a heap-lots of trouble, especially with her police past and link to the government that these criminals surely would draw knives and daggers to. Diablo knew her name, but he had no idea of her past, nor did he have real time to make research about it, she was dead-on sure. Brad didn't even know for her existence in that dingy basement, and he had tried extremely hard to lure her in for himself… the recollection of the memories and feelings she had went through in that storage room, it made her chest to cuddle in despondency. So she just shot in the dark to whatever caught the dicey mark.

"Lilac," Judy shamefully lied with a trained smile that she hoped would mask the ineffectiveness of the ability of using misguiding information. Diablo had instantly zeroed his old ambers on Judy, but she noticed a thin smile cracking his lips that spoke acceptance to her steps undertaken. It just utterly confused her to his lack of a loud response, but she didn't have time to ponder, her paw was grabbed in a pawshake by the overly-friendly skunk.

"Such a nice namesie, never heard such anywhere in this tailhole of a district! I'm Stella, but you can use whatever fitsies your little tonguesie. Oh, come here, _Cacklefuck_ , don't be a rude idiot." The hyena looked around himself as if not sure that Stella had called for him to come closer and introduce himself. His posture worsened more and he bashfully closed the distance, all the while looking at Diablo through very short glances.

"Hey…" the hyena's unsure voice whispered in the air, while Stella released the strong grip from Judy's paw and put a foot aside, so she could reach and pull for the dark pants of the tortilla and walnut-spotted mammal.

"Get ov- right, don't be shy. He's shy," she said to Judy and rolled her eyes. "His daddy named him Hyen, but that just doesn't sit right with me, so I call him Jiggles! Don't ask why, _hih_. Well, what are you waiting for, Didi just told us to be friendly mammalsies!"

"Oh," Hyen exclaimed and extended a slightly-shaky paw towards Judy, whose body jumped inside of her at the sight of those ebony fingers and rough claws, but she forced herself steady and moved her exhausted paw outside the cocoon of her cloak, while looking into his olive eyes and ebony muzzle. But the moment she grabbed the rough-looking limb of Hyen, she was surprised at how gentle and actually frail it felt.

"Nice to meet you… Jig- Hyen," Judy strangely perplexed amidst her bafflement of the situation the skunk had made at the sidestep of a step.

"Yea…" Hyen smiled through an obvious façade that exposed all his rows of yellowish teeth. Even after all this time with she had mingled with mammals of different species in the academy and Zootopia, she was still amazed that the hyena could have so many interesting features she wanted to see through. Maybe it was because it was more personal, something she achieve when just looking at someone from a distance.

" _Ughhh_ , you're even making me feel awkwardsie. Shoo!" she flung her paws at the hyena, who immediately moved some steps away from Judy and rubbed his paws together. "So, I take you're a new mammalsie to our cause, hmmm? Oh, you'll love it, I promise you t-"

"You've fucked around too long. Get the fuck away from my corridor!" Diablo intervened and stepped between Judy and the skunk, who agilely tried to go around the wolf, in contradiction to her body's size and lack of height, but he pushed her harshly against the chest, thus instilling a spiteful groan and a raised tail which's motion appeared like the drawing of a live gun.

" _Ugh_ , ass- _hole_ ," she unapologetically shouted directly to Diablo's face, but he didn't react to her insult and just glared at her, while she touched her tail and pushed it closer to herself. "Fine…" she relented with a gesture Judy was sure it meant something foul, but before Stella had pulled onto Hyen's ebony tail for the effects of movement, she added something that Judy didn't want to hear.

" _Oh_! We got another bunny in our own teamsie. He's a sugar-looking cutesie, you'll love him! Total one-eighty with this stack of coal here, _hih_." At the mention of a sugar-looking buck on their team, Judy's semi-raised ears fell as if pulled by 50 kilo weights attached to each ear. She had used similar wording to describe _him_ as such, when she had first met him that day at that sunny and peaceful park… And then, he had shown his scarlet colors under that pristine white fur, an animal in clothes. The decision to bite her tongue and give no response, to the news they were outdated upon, was made, thus Judy let herself roam the space of her head in the search for closure…

"Stack of coal my cock, fuckly-fuck of a cheesy cunt-sack. On the double fucks, _now_!" Diablo bellowed behind her giggles and whispered coos that drowned in unknown qualities to the ear of Hyen, who gave another distinct cackle rather adorable. Judy was… flabbergast, her mind just couldn't understand what had just happened. All this friendly behavior was like finding an apple on a pear tree, a red, big, fat and juicy apple. Weren't such occurrences usually false under the pretext of genuineness? But the skunk actually had appeared interested. And yet, it was as if she was playing a sort of game with the black wolf. And even with her friendliness, she exhibited some kind of power. She wasn't taller by the other males, but she was certainly a head taller than Nick. Her muzzle was oddly shaped to that of hogs, with her nose being grey curved, as if used for digging up soil. That had made the biggest impression on Judy, apart from the nudity and obscene furtattoos.

"A fine lieutenant, but a fucking disgrace, nosey bitch," Diablo murmured lowly, but Judy caught all the words. So that was why he wasn't reacting that harshly against her, she had influence… "Lilac, _hmmm_? Taking into consideration already, changed your mind?" Judy had expected jeering, but all she got was more initiation to be part of _this_ , a part of something she still had a small picture of. Maybe if she played her last remaining card right, she could get good information and decline, nevertheless. But her pride spoke before her reason, and for the first time in her life, she felt great dissonance for allowing herself to be who she was.

"No."

"Fuck you too then," Diablo countered and lashed by, hitting her with his heavy tail and rattling her body to take a step away. But that made her head to swing up at the ceiling, which bared the distance of a crack, a crack extending towards the top of the sculpture where it had sunk its claws in. How had she missed that major detail was beyond her, but the curiosity made her high voice to sate the corridors around them.

"Why is there a crack?" Diablo stopped slowly and looked at her if concerned for her sanity, but when she pointed up, he gawked with a closed mouth, until frowning deeply.

"There isn't…"

"But…" Judy walked closer to the giant sever of sides and squinted her eyes as if trying to see if they had been damaged from the prior experience close. No, they were working on more than medium capacity, and there was a giant slice of rock that extended from the ceiling and through this piece of rocky art. "There it is!" she besieged strongly and pointed at it in motion, but the diabolical wolf shrugged his shoulders and just visibly lost interest in saying anything to her, to which her mind gave queue to the possibility of delusions or hallucinations, yet after she had blinked more than twenty times was the realization that there really was a breach in the top part of the rock.

Childishness overtook her as she grumbled and nestled herself broader into the woolen paradise, while wanting to put her rump on something that wasn't going to be cold, sharp, evil or deadly, due to the discomfort in her shins getting kinda unbearable to handle after having had walked and stood for so long. Strange how the rest in the vehicle hadn't helped her rest at all, she felt like running on her last reserves.

" _Dumb wolf,_ " she whispered and closed her crimsonshot lilacs with an inhale, but when they were unfastened, she saw him observing her with a sort of a _don't hypocrite me_ look.

"You say yes, you can fucker all you want. Otherwise, go fuck yourself," he growled at her and managed to stomp her motivation to probe further, as each insult was like a bullet to her beaten body, thus her ears fell with the sync of her eyes and tail. Her fate was unknown and she was at the mercy of the leader of this place, who didn't seem that unreasonable, yet his methods were extreme.

His paw gave the order to follow, and with some final scrutiny upon the peculiar rock of art, she took on the steps towards the endless unknown. Her feet touched on the heavenly carpet again, and she wondered if she should just get over her pride and accept this reality, this… _opportunity_? Nick would've seized it without a second thought. Wait, Nick!

Her heart dropped like iron chains in water, and she immediately turned around as if trying to spot him behind her like a recently-dropped wallet. But her brain realized that he wasn't with her, he was gone somewhere, anywhere… She was sure that he had been captured just as she herself was, the question remained tho, where the hell was he? Was he at that place with the engine and storage rooms? But that was so far away, so guarded, so distant now… She instantly tried to speak the questions to where _her_ fox was, but she clamped her muzzle into the dejection that such information could be used against her. Tho, maybe she could find out through trickery, she just needed some time to formulate such in which her life lacked experience upon.

The sound of sparks and shouting came from ahead, where a less hospitable interior was showcasing an entrance to this wide-framed garage door with sensors of many lights and analog indicators.

" _Get out'n there, you're going to short whole board damn board. Oh, by my dead ancestors, crawl through it then!_ " She heard the pompous and slightly high voice that was sprinkled with some kind of foreign dialect that she had never heard of. This same awful smell of concentrated burnt plastic and other chemicals flooded her space as she passed by that opened entrance, which exposed a giant workshop with countless tools hung on the walls, boxes with components, and other equipment that she couldn't catch sight of as she had passed by too quickly. She didn't see the source of the voice and took a step back. This time she noticed movement on one of the big tables, where some kind of… looked like the exoskeleton of those soldiers. There was a log-shaped wombat working on it with a wrench.

" _Told 'em'n to go through water, and that's exactly what they doin'…_ " he muttered loudly and Judy tried to step inside the abundant workshop, but something lit up on the shoulder of the doorway, which got the wombat to instantly drill her way. She was met in the distance by his goggled face, which had lens and even optics attached to his eyes and head, while his paws were heavy with even more mechanisms of so many tools… that wrench he was holding was actually attached to him. The optics zoomed on Judy as they elongated in her direction.

"Mess hall, to right," he pointed with his over-equipped paw. "Ain't your reception, damn greenies," he shouted from the distance at Judy and growled as he returned to work, giving sparks and bright blue light that annoyed Judy's vision. He had begun welding, and she wanted to ask a few more questions, but saw Diablo from the corner of her eye. Thus she flicked her tail in annoyance and took to her prior route, to Diablo's visible surprise.

" _Leo, bring hydraulics for shoulder a-_ " was all Judy managed to hear as they moved away from the workshop. The air lost its repugnant smell and they were again in the comfort of coziness and warmth. Well, the warmth was getting a bit too much with her woolen cloak, but she wasn't letting go of it any time soon. There was an opening ahead, this one looked spacious and had a group of mammals noising about in chatter. She glanced at Diablo as if asking him the _carrot_ was that, but he refrained from even sparing a blink at her existence.

Both of them entered the big foyer that was rather luxurious with its engraved symbolic details and sparkling chandelier, which was suspended from the ceiling like the crown of the sky invisible. Below the chandelier was what appeared to be a platform with engraved railing wooden, while similar pillars supported it underneath to the reach of the carpeted floor and bulk of mammals, whose mouths Judy could summarize into the simpleness of _money, approval for trade, transport, security and go die_ …

"Oh, fucks of a fuckly fuck… The fuck you all doing in here, fucken vultures!" Diablo's shout silenced the crowd and got them to focus all their attention on him. In the flick of a breath, a female hippo came close to the snarling wolf. She was taller than him, and yet her posture spoke humility to the intimidating wolf.

"Diablo, we been bad'n sources, and the kits're sick, we gotta shed more… this with new el-"

"I'll shut you the fuck up right this very fucking here. Money, _ey_? Everyone who's here about tax exemptions, get the fuck out before I send teams to cut down your fucking wires."

"B-bu-" the hippo tried to continue talking, but he sidestepped by her and pointed his deadly claw at the crowd with malice around his experienced teeth.

"If we started making exceptions, all we've built will fall into disrepair like it has. So, if you don't agree, get the fuck out of my building!" Silence ensued… and then it was chaos as the crowd erupted even louder than before, but now the dislike was focused on the diabolical wolf, who sighed angrily and flicked his tail, while shouldering through the crowd and towards the opened doubled doors where the crowd was extending through. Judy was extra careful when navigating through the paws and hoofs of the angry mob, yet she was surprised that none dared to physically create conflict with the wolf, or throw something at him. It was just words that were unintelligible, due to the countless spoken at the same time of moment. She managed to hear some tho, words like _tyrants_ and _Mammalian filth,_ but that was pretty much it.

They got through the doorway with some strain, as there was a rather obese elephant taking the whole entrance, to which Diablo had to resort to some very nasty curses and twitches on his holster. The place they entered had dimmed light and endless amounts of paper documents nailed or pinned to the wooden walls, while tables stood underneath them, occupied by many mammals of different species and sizes, who were scribbling down on whatever was there to be scribbled at. The ceiling here wasn't overexerted and appeared slightly bunkerish. Diablo stopped by a secluded pillar and beckoned Judy to his personal space.

"Last chance, rabbit. All of these fuckers here would skin you alive for the offer I'm giving you. Don't be a fucktard like the rest of your species," Diablo sneered, and the last comment pierced her heart to retort and tell him to stuff his tail somewhere, but she held her tongue and just frowned at him. Maybe she could use this moment. But first, she needed to know what was going to happen to her.

"Unfuckingbelievable. Either you're fucked in the head, or too proud… Huh…" for a moment his detest morphed into a tint of admiration, tho it lasted a mere second. "You're a gutsy kit, I'll give you that. But you still don't know shit'o'fucks,"

"I'm not a kit," she retorted finally, but received a detached shrug, after which Diablo reached for his jacket's pocket, from where he got out a familiar orange wallet with a carrot in its middle. She tried to rush and take back her property, but stopped herself, knowing that rashness wasn't a smart option currently, not when the insanity had drained away from her head. He pulled out her ID card plastic, and squinted at it, until his eyes shifted at Judy, as if checking once more if that was her. Then… he basically read out loud through the cacophony around them.

"Judith Laverene Hopps. Mammalian nationality, born on the twenty first of August, nineteen-ninety-two. Seventy-five centimeters tall, purple eyes… Place of residence: Province of Bunnyburrow, some _bullshit_ … _aha_ , Hopps' Family Farm…" His expression turned into amusement and was locked firmly onto Judy, whose stomach was starting to churn like a raging sea. "You're a long way from Bunnyburrow, country _gal_ ," he grinned in breadth at her through barbed teeth, while all this information spoken aloud brought a sense of new lack of safety within her. It wasn't for herself, but those who were tied to her by name and blood.

He wasn't reading it in front of her just for no reason, this was a threat. And the threat was skulking, intimidating and pernicious. Her revulsion wasn't even close to a pathetic jot, because she felt an inexperienced horror that shook her obscured knees and trashed against her heart's core in a crozzled inferno malevolent. The corners of her eyes sipped strain, while her throat just was locked shut with the bulkiest of chain.

"New to Zootopia, or just visiting? Or something… _else_?" he probed, but his patience from the loudness around them thinned into a scrunch of lips. "I don't give a fuck," was his deadpan, as he chucked the ID into the wallet. Without warning, he just threw it at Judy, and she nearly dropped it from shock, tho what she dropped was the cloak to her feet, which gave view to her ruined clothes and filthy appearance to the mammals all around… But, just like Diablo's words, so were their reactions the same.

"I take full responsibility for the actions of those under my leadership. The behavior of Rapey Brady was inexcusable and has been punished accordingly. The allegations you've brought up against my memmle are most troubling, but will be looked into as well. As fairness is due…" His ears went up and he inspected his sharp-obsidian claws with a sort of confusion. Judy was starting to look around herself with deeper scrutiny. With so many mammals, the opportunity for escape was like served in a food basket for her. All she had to do was just dive between the legs of the tall masses of mammal. But then Diablo shrugged his shoulders and gave her the last, totally stunning words.

"You're free to go," Diablo finished and looked at her rather too formally. In between her gawking, she couldn't help herself but snort and then giggle like a teenage brat, to which Diablo flashed his deep scowl at her.

"Go where?" Judy asked as she gesticulated around the place, while noticing the eyes of several mammals looking at her as if she was crazy. "You think I can believe you?"

"I don't give a flying fuck what you think, slimey _rabbitbitch_. Get the fuck out of here before I kick your filthy ass down the stairs!" he shouted and pointed towards the other side of the room, where elevation moved down in the form of… well, ruddy stairs. Judy looked at the direction, then back at Diablo. Was he being genuine... This wasn't a trick? She took a step away from him, then another, and another. Nothing happened…

Freedom, freedom awaited her, this was… Wait, she needed info!

"What was going to happen to me if things had went _according_ to plan?"

" _Ugh_? The fuck it matters?" Diablo hissed, but she persevered with fortitude which got him to sigh and tell her, "We need participants for the yearly _twilight shit_. We need numbers, especially if mals are unwilling fuckers."

"Where and when is it going to be?"

"Read the fucking papers, fuckly lazy fuck! Don't need another skunkfucker. We're done here," he finalized and just strode away, leaving thus a puzzled Judy with lots of more questions unanswered. She saw herself chasing after the black body of broiling insults, but decided to remain in the safety of luck. She put the wallet inside her pants' pocket and huddled the cloak closer to herself, while moving towards the stairs, towards her freedom. Despite the lack of appeal of the dim room she was in, it felt at least civilized to a degree. The noise, chatter, the mammals all around, it gave to a feeling of mammality. She found a stack of papers on a high table, but she didn't want to jump up so she could get one, she just didn't trust her body currently.

Instead, she just continued towards the stairs, while scanning the floor and surroundings for her target. Ah, there, just a few steps down lied a forsaken paper with liquid stains on the side of the center, looked like spit… hopefully. She was careful around the hordes of mammals, and used the wall as a way to save herself from trampled death. The paper was thin and apparently had just a few pages. Well, the one she was now looking at was a big one, considered surely for those tall behemoths of mammals that she granted to be when above 1,80 meters tall.

 _The keepers's paper news- **Fresh**!_

 _Your reliable source!_

 ** _Twilights Downfall!_**

 _We advice you to join this yearly imporntant event of bonding and comunity-building opportunity. The benefits of comfort will be widely avalable by us in lots of food and spectecles. Just like last year but this year it will be bigger and better. Also no taxation on trade in the Bazar for a week to those present. We are who you've chosen to be your rigthful keepers of safety your keepers of future your keepers of life. Don't forget to be at the **Bazar** at /14.07.2016/, / **18:00./**_

 _We're always hiring able individuals to our cause, search a recruiter at any local outpost._

\- _Need electronical parts, bring me parts and I'll give you cash. You bring cables, I'll whip your backs with'em. Otto, if I catch a whiff of you anywhere here I'll personally drown you in a piss tub._

 ** _Twilights downfall_** _/14.07.2016/ / **18:00/** at **Bazar**_

 _Report any illicit activity and earn extra rations and privileges. Snitching is not always bad when it's for the cause of progression and stability_

\- _Compliance with the Mammalian military personnel will result in less mistakes and exuberant safety. Always listen and follow the commands you've been given, otherwise incite to suspicion is due to ensue._

 _Put dem scum on the botom, stop puting'em first pag- fuck you, I wanna typeitqwrl;[poibkfbddf[''_

 _Do not undertake the journeey to the Border until you've participeted in the yearly **Twilights Downfall!** /14.07.2016/, / **18:00/** at the **Bazar**. Its treacthery and a degranding way to say thank you to all we've done for all of you. Be vigillant, be smart not stupid, be loyal. We deserve your trust! Or I'll fuck youup moters off fuckers ungrateful._

 _Items for sale at keepers hq:_

\- _1t crocodile meat, 700kg bird meat, 300 eggs, 2t mince, 6t pototoes, 700kg salt, 500kg sugar, 5t beetroot, 4t fish, 5t onion, 15t flour, 5t bean, 400kg chickpea,_ _1t lettuce, 1,5t rice, 100kg honey, 2t apple, 1t pears, 700kg carrot, 7t corn,_ _50kg hazelnuts, 20kg cashew,_ _20kg almond, 1t cooking oil, 500kg vineagar, 600kg peach, 350_ _kg plum, 1t chedar, 4t milk, 2t cheese, 600l mix blood._

\- _Steel, wood, batteries, wires, sand, cement, bricks, dirt, leather, glue._

Judy tried to digest all the information, but some if it was just too strange and kinda riddled with mistakes and awful stylization, so she decided to give it some read later to the rest of it, thus rolled it into a burrito and began climbing down the stone steps. She could see bright light close to the base and felt a rush of energy and curiosity. Her heart began thumping louder, while the pain in her legs wasn't being registered by her brain. She felt adventurous again after these countless hours of captivity, abuse and angst. It was like, like she was actually free, she was free, she wasn't going to die or remain in a locked room, or be used as a rag for the rest of her life!

The light was getting closer, until it blinded her lilacs and got her to put a paw above her head. Slowly adjusting to this new source of vision, she removed her paw and then saw the first sights of the other side that came to be in between two stone pillars amidst the dividing path. Her eyes remained open all the way that she jogged, until she stopped by one of the stone pillars and just ate all that was before her.

But then, she just sat on the cold ground and sighed dreamily to this strange world, to this new world. So this was it, this was…

The infamous Nocturnal District.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	33. Salvation Square

**Chapter Thirty-Three**

 **Salvation Square**

Pillars of solid rock reinforced, enthralled in twisting folds of rusty metal. Above, they supported the roofs of obsidian rock that acted as a failed illusion to the inky sky-forgotten. Enclosed, imperfect and riddled with unnatural edges-sharp. There were no stalactites that one would believe there'd be, just bare lifeless rock riddled with many tiny structures bolted-strong. Cables, they were everywhere, hanging from the top, climbing around the pillars, as if they were ropes that mammals would use to move around the place. Obviously tho, they were evidently worn by hundreds of bats that hung mockingly from them in the unreachable distance.

She could absorb all of that in the prowling soar, because of the frail amount of light that whispered dimly, in contrast, around the countless buildings-tiny. There were no stars, no sun, no moon, only the limbs of electricity and the armies of homes or structures-hanging.

Looking down on the ground, she noticed what looked like architecture like no other. One of black rock, old brown brick, peeling wood or rusty metal. They varied in shades and material radically, yet all appeared to have a specific design that could be labeled under a single word: scrappy. They were all scrappy, as if parts of them were attached with the crawl of time. In the middle: a market square, where many improvised stands lingered in disorganized rows. The goods apparently ranged from equipment to food, and unsurprisingly even more food. The realization of eyes gave Judy's belly a rumble, and she nearly reacted, but despite the coldness of her seat, she wanted to rest her rump a bit more and just to eat up the rest of the strangely interesting details.

This world, it was nothing like the city of Zootopia or the oldest city in Bunnyburrow that was Lapiny, which she regarded as a pile of unsavory food, mildly said. The Noc was unregulated, amateurish and impractical, yet working and evidently existing with its flaws in the harmony of disorganization, nonetheless. Usually everyone would agree that if you plunged a rod into the gears of a machine, it'd immediately grind to a stop with fumes, sparks of friction-disliked and a quick death, yet this machine had somehow found a way to continue its life and go around that degenerated rod of regress-unquestioned.

With a grumble that got her irritation to steam away frugally, she dropped the paper and got her wallet out. It felt rather greasy, but she was already deeply filthy anyways to care at all what touched her dirty paws. She fished out her ID and some membership cards for the Zootopian libraries, and one lonely card for mixed martial arts she had subscribed herself to, the first day she had arrived in Zootopia. But apart from that, there was nothing else. She didn't have any kinds of credit or debit cards, due to her hometown preferring cash, so she had learned to like its physicalness as well.

Speaking of the devil, just as she instinctively opened the compartment for money, knowing full well that it was going to probably have cobwebs from the thievery and cruelty of her captors, she was made astounded from the presence of _money_ within. It didn't even look that it was in a diminutive amount either. Her finger touched its plastic rim, then she booped it again, until shuffling it out and starting to count the many bills of twenties. She was so engrossed in her counting that her eyes didn't notice the looks of disdain the mammals, who passed by her, gave to her paws.

The final sum was 625 Mammalian dollars. That was just slightly above her monthly rent, and she remembered that her wallet had some pathetic 35 dollars and some cents hiding in the corners. Well, the cents were definitely captured. Had they grown into this obvious government money, money that she pulled to try and tear, yet failed as it withstood the test of genuineness. She deliberated what to do with it, as her mind knew that this was not hers. Diablo had put it in there, he had said that he was remorseful for what had happened to her, not that she believed him one bit, and now he had given her blood money for her participation in the murder. This money was evil, it was filthy, it made her paws to squeeze it and her frown to try and cut her lips.

But before she did something irrational, she stuffed the banknotes into her wallet and quickly hid it from view into her pocket, readjusting her wool cloak so that her rump was no longer sitting on the cold and uncomfortable stone, but on the stuffy and warm isolation that surely belonged to some ewe, or a handful of ewes. It had been a giant blanket. But what if they had forcefully taken those ewes' only way of preserving warmth, what if it had been harvested with fist and boot? No need to think upon such matters, she had to find out more about her surroundings, such was her new goal that was foreshadowed by several bats, who flashed above her head in a dash of speed.

Her body readjusted closer to the portico's pillar, as a big-meaty mammal stepped too close to comfort. Her paws unrolled the wrinkled paper, and she gave it another skim of informative collectiveness. Apparently this event, named Twilight's Downfall, was going to take place in the Bazar on the 14th at 18:00 o'clock. The problem she had was that she didn't know the time, nor the date. Thinking back, she was sure that the day, when her and Nick had hunted for a rentable apartment, was the tenth of July. That meant that there were four days until it was to be hosted, wherever this bazar really was. But how could she know how much time had she spent in captivity? Hours, days, weeks? It did feel like weeks, but the most logical would be days, counting her thirst, hunger and other _digestive_ needs.

Speaking of hunger, even if she had stuffed her stomach to the brim in that repulsing storage room, it was feeling needy everso. She skimmed the paper's bottom, where she found volumes of specified-food labeled for sale, a certain bunch of words catching her worthwhile attention in the forms of tasty vegetables. With a huff of determination, she tried to stand up, but her legs whimpered immediately at her action, thus she surrendered to remain seated for a while more, deliberating about the world around her, deliberating her choices and her actions.

The cloak was snuggled even closer. Her mind was craving warmth and comfort, even her tiny apartment's bed would've sufficed, even the silent-hill's car in Bunnyburrow would've been a heaven to be at. Overlooking the farmers' houses from above, enshrouded by warm winds and a clear-sweet sky… waiting for _him_ to come over and keep her company as he had always done… Her lilacs trembled, the nostalgia upon the past and the grief of it, it somehow got back at her. Such was not necessary, but she needed a warm memory to cling onto, something to give her the strength to carry on with the burdens in her cells, to endure and persevere against all cosmically calculated odds.

Her goal: to make the world a better place… Was it a kit's dream? Was it a delusion of naivety and foreseen collapse? No… no, she had to keep trying, for him, for herself, for everyone in the position she was at, or worse. Selfishness was not an option, and even if she failed a hundred times, she had to keep on going… if not for herself, then for those in need. First and foremost, she needed to know if Nick had managed to run away, or was captured and was to be used for avarice-induced ideas and goals. Hopefully not for such, which her fate nearly betrayed corruption to.

With whimpers and searing tears in her eyes, she put her whole weight on her legs and stood as tall as her body gave opportunity to. Her lips were twitching with scorn, but after some moments, she got used to the crunching bruises and began climbing down the carved-rock steps and towards the bustling square. It was paved with black stones and there were these average grooves on the sides, from where discolored water crawled. The visibly mobile stands around the square had planks over those groves that made connections like arteries to limbs. Tarps hung everywhere, light shone and wobbled from tiny bulbs hanging all around-off loose wires.

The crowds of different mammals were irritating to traverse for Judy, as nobody was taking precaution to where they were stepping, even the mammals shorter than her were shouldering through with force, thus she did the smartest possible move and got close to one of the grooves, from where she met marginally less resistance. The air had a very stale weight with a mix of sewage. She could see the food and equipment everywhere around her, tho the stacks of meat, caged lizards and birds gave her such a shudder that it hurt her head to a throb.

Just as she was to get to the center of the square, where something like a lean column watched over the place, she realized it was no simple piece of erect structure. It resembled some kind of obsidian monument, but it wasn't still comprehensible. Something fell on her head with a light thump, as well as all around her and the mammals in the crowd. Looked like… _bones_ … with small pieces of meat hanging around the joints. She quickly snapped up and noticed several bats of small size jeering at the crowd below.

" _Rascal rat shits!_ " yelled one of the traders, a giraffe, and grabbed a long stick with which she tried to swap them out of the air like overgrown flies, but they were quick and managed to scurry away into the safety of the airy distance. Judy actually snorted, but when she touched her head to remove the stuck solidity, she saw that the bones looked rather fleshy and bloody, thus immediately dropped it on the ground and told herself that it was from a small lizard or a pigeon… or a mouse or _squirrel_ … Her legs gave a quick rush towards the center, as she felt the pressure of heat to surround the insides of her protective cloak. There was a pothole on which her leg gave stumble to, and she swooshed in disbalance to her speed.

Her back collided with something tough, cold and lifeless, but the force stung her spine from the tail to the brain with immediate pain. She had been bashed into a metal dumpster after all. Her body arched backwards with a wheeze of a breathless shriek, until she slumped back and breathed the pain away in slowness-crawling.

It wasn't the physical tho what gave away problems, it was that within the structure of neurons that were firing into the cacophony of consternation. After seeing murder, deceitful heartbreak, cannibalism and attempts of defilement, the pressure nearly popped her brain out of her skull. But the growth of weakness got her spite to flare, thus she growled so loudly that a few mammals nearby gave her looks of panic, as if she had rabies that would spread through her exhales and unsavory scent-unkempt.

But when her paw touched the support behind her, she felt smoothness, thus the surprise that made her quizzical. She turned around, but being too close and witnessing just black slick-rock, she moved away further, until the frame of a big bat, with widely spread wings, was what her eyes ate upon. Its fangs were long and sharp, its body equipped with belts that moved around through holes in the wings, pouches were attached all around those belts, while clothing hugged the body-decent. The bat looked ready to strike its prey, it looked so real that Judy nearly was given the illusion that she was in immediate danger-critical.

There was a plaque _The Nameless Bat: In the memory of those who gave their all for us to be where we are._ Her eyes ogled childishly the slick design of the architecture before her tiny existence. She felt insignificant, but also her curiosity just exploded to want more of that what was not being given to her in wanted amounts. Her feet carried her around the statue, where she saw parts of the stretched cloths, which were linked tightly into the belts that gave surround on the creature's wide back. There was a collar forming around its neck and some kind of dangling-short ropes clipped to the said belts-sturdy.

She didn't time how long her mind had soaked-up the details, but when her head shook self-consciously, she sighed with energetic vigor. There was something like a notice board, supported by wooden frames on the edge of the statue, towards which Judy skipped. The ropes and leather was enveloping it, while many pages of paper were joined together onto the surface, thus filling the big space, while a thick glass protected it from the outside. There were some cracks and a _brownish_ substance, hopefully not that _kind_... It was a map, drawn by paw and not digitally printed. Why a place with electricity lacked such basic technology like printers? As she thought about it, even the paper-read had been strangely formatted… such mistakes were easily fixed by proofing software that most word processors had in this day of world-advanced.

The map bore the abbreviation _Noc_ on top of it, while below was the header of _Redemption's Step_. She easily found her location, _Salvation Square_ , as it was marked with red ink. There were buildings spotlighted with specific colors, and a legend on the lower right side specifying what kind of place a specific mark was. The stench from her was disgruntling, but the atmosphere around her didn't carry much of a better odor. What was more pressing was her shirt that needed fixing. But then she noticed a point with a skull far from the population area, _The Border_ , which showed an arrow up and nothing else in significance to detail.

Scouring the square once more, now under the protection that spot had given her, she just examined all the mammals thoroughly, through the short intervals of blurs. She still hadn't recuperated from that awful engine place. Most were dressed with old clothes that looked sewn imperfectly, unlike those that machines produced in Mammalia and the world-rest. The mammals wore knapsacks and belts, where equipment was attached to in the forms of knives, flashlights, pouches, guns and much more. One hog even had a hunting rifle on his back, while half of his head was clasped by a piece of silver metal. Fur of his was lacked all around the shininess…

Had she teleported somehow to a different world? This looked dystopian and anachronistic at the same time, and yet… those soldiers at the engine place… they were like the opposite. She knew of the existence of exo-skeletons and heavy armor, but nothing on such a scale of progressiveness and lackluster impregnation. If such a soldier would just go on a rampage, anywhere, who would be able to stop them?

She readjusted and swept towards one of the many buildings that surrounded the square. Her stomach rumbled in craving, while her eyes deepened the hunger, when she saw a tiger waving around oranges from his stand at the passersby. She jumped over grime and some trash, and climbed closer to where the buildings were looked up from. Most were inside the black foundation of solidity, but portions of them protruded out. There were platforms, where more mammals were selling stuff above, while outside and close to the homes and workplaces, were the goods and equipment of crafters. She grabbed on memory and looked to the right, where she noticed clothing and threads.

" _Wabbit, ey wabbit!_ " Judy heard this whispery voice of a mammal behind her. Her muscles flicked, and she instantly turned around, while taking several steps backwards with a twitching nose. A scruffy hare taller than her, but unhealthily bony. He was missing a leg and was crutching his way towards her, while a cigarette burned away in his sooty mouth, while his body shook uncontrollably through his slumped posture. The feeling of threat died at the miserable sight, and she waited to find what the hare wanted of her. Visibly he wasn't having trouble moving quickly, but the groans with each trembling step taken, they sounded almost painful. He stopped too close to her, thus she moved back a bit again. The age was spoken by his withered eyes, while coughs flew from his mouth in par the smoke.

"Haven' seen ye oddball out," he said with a croak, while Judy felt more like she was being asked a question. But she couldn't see any threat the old hare could give her, as she could just kick his wobbly crutch if worst came to blink.

"No." Her cloak closed her further, and she just stared patiently at the mammal who wiggled the ashy cigarette.

"Seen ye peepin' there," he pointed towards the statue, and she wondered if those misty eyes actually were just a façade, "wann' ye helpin' paw?" Her ears plummeted from tallness and her mouth had a tiny gape of surprise and doubt that blocked her ability to react properly in time to the hare's amusement of control over her misinformation and lack of proper compass.

"I don'— I mean—yes, but I think I can ge—" she was interrupted quickly by the agile mouth before her.

"Can show ye 'round, be good for ye," he assured through the sounds of age, and spat his depleted cigarette that was nearly going to crumble ash on his mouth. "Both's can!" Rushed steps rumbled behind her, but she was a bit detached at that moment, while the hare continued, "Kinna runnin' out, maybeh ye help an old fellow prey out? Don' need if ye do—"

"I'd break t'e stick over yer head, cripple!" shouted a leather-coated mammal in the species of a hippo. Judy moved away, as the wider mammal closed in on the mortified shaky-old hare. Her flat teeth opened, she wanted to intervene and stop the nonsense, but noticed another vigilant mammal, in the same outfit, too close to the comfort of the safety she had been somehow enjoying.

"Teld-you! No begging, filthy cripple." The hippo shoved his burly arm into the bony hare, who stumbled back with his chin tucked into the thin skin of his neck.

"Wasn'… ye-know, just askin' the good lassie-she needin' help, ye." But the hippo took out his baton from the inner-pocket of his brown jacket and it sparked loudly in front the hare, who appeared too shocked to react adequately in flee.

She felt a twirl of sickness inside of her, when she tried to go away and just do what she had set for a goal in the first place, but her feet defied. "He wasn't begging, leave him alone!" she cut-in and made the hippo to draw eyes on her in scorn, while his partner visibly had moved closer to her decision. There was no insignia or elements showing who these two mammals were, but they obviously were patrolling, as she noticed the firepower leaking from the hippo's belt. The intimidating skin-thick mammal scrutinized her existence, and then just made the spark's life fade.

"Dun-lemme catch yer again, or yer gettin' sacked, old cripple," the hippo sneered and moved past the old hare, not forgetting to bump his shoulder into the weaker bones of the old mammle. Judy was now near the old hare, while glaring at the departed patrol. She wasn't experiencing trepidation at this very moment, it was again the emotion of retribution she remembered when she had stood-up for Nick in the Jumbo-Pop shop, despite finding out that she had been scammed just like the rest of the people around her.

"Thank-ye lassie, dunno'f could dash, don've the leg to hop it, _hah_ ," the old mammle spoke to Judy with a voice devoid of the side of trickery she was met with his initial entrance. "Gota'fag?" he asked with a purse of dry-cracked lips, but she only stared at him through a flummox of brows. " _Guh_ , smoke, got'smoke?" he asked again with his shudder-extended paw, where she noticed only two fingers present, the rest were stumps of disability. She shook her head in decline, as the only thing she had on her was her wallet, her fur and the luggage of psychological problems. If only she could give him some of that baggage…

"Smoking will kill you," Judy retorted when she saw his disbelief of vex, yet she was met with a scoff and a light chuckle that brought titters of coughs from the old mammle.

"Eaten more bread than all dem tit-sucklers," he laughed hoarsely and balanced himself on one quivering leg, while pointing his crutch at Salvation Square, "none'em know what it were like. No heat, bright, order or wha'ever. Just survival," he trailed off, while his misty eyes, which were staring directly into Judy, appeared to be lost in time. He was there, in front of her, and yet it was as if he wasn't on this plain of existence no more. She waved at him lightly through the gap of her cloak, but then his mouth started giving way to slobber.

"Hey!" Judy shouted at the zoned-out hare, who jumped back on his crutch, with the failed attempt of straightening his back, and looked around with this deep insanity in his jittery body, but then, as he scanned the surrounding in haste, the insanity dulled into a sigh at the ground.

"Better times it were. _Ey_ , was wonderin' ye help a old lad out? Ye know how't is," the trickery had infected his tongue, and his cheeks of white fur were somehow envigored with blood. Her mind scorned at the old hare, but since she had seen how he had been treated, while his age and disability gave her tugs to the strings of her heart, she began reaching towards there where the bills of mean hid, the money of blood.

"But… the _accent_ , where ye bred, lassie?" he asked, which made her paw to freeze on the wallet hidden in her pocket. Was this a trick question, and what kind of wording was this even? In a way he was bitterly reminding her of her grandfather, to whom she didn't hold a liking, due to his harsh words of discouragement and lack of empathy. She still remembered how he had told her that if it were to him, he'd have had her locked in a hole for five days without food so that she'd stop thinking that she could be more than a kit factory. Therefor was why she took dislike to the word breed in the first place.

"Bunnyburrow," she answered, but his brows contracted in frustrated lack of understanding. He was a hare, how could he not know Bunnyburrow, the biggest province in all of Mammalia, the lifeblood of food that fed all those north from its boundary-less borders. She diced to give clarification, "But came to Zootopia to pursue m—" she remained with an open mouth, her sentence losing its way up her throat, due to the reaction of shock from the hare, which immediately morphed into that same insanity of fatal consternation. His ears fell like led behind him in a dusty effect, and she was met with his patched back a second later, while he crutched away from her in haste that was equal to that of a young mammal with two legs.

"He— _wait_! What did I say…" she shouted behind the cripple, with a forfeiting run, thus stopping in huddle to herself and staring nose-twitchy at the hare, who soon mingled into the distant crowd of the square. Why had he just tucked tail and run? Wasn't he going to ask her about a guiding paw in the form of currency, what did make him so afraid as to steer clear from that opportunity that she was blamelessly going to provide…

The lack of understanding made her feel empty, and the anxiety in her head fused with the troubles of the recent events, it made her hyper-aware of her surroundings, and vulnerability poisoned her from within with the effects of feeling small and insignificant. The kit side of herself emerged and it was as if she couldn't make any choices for herself. In a way she felt like wanting someone to help her. The instinct to flee, to hide, it overtook her spirit and she nearly dashed to seek safety in the shadows, like how her feral ancestors would do when sensing trouble.

But life had taught her the lessons of experience, and she managed to catch on to the prey instincts that had occurred all through the hardships of her years. Always in situations like this, tho nowhere near as radical as this one, always had she gone through the change of confidence, and always had she managed to take it back into her heart.

Today was the day again when she said _no_ , when she showed everyone yet again that she was never the stereotype of her species, the gullible and weak prey-good-for-nothing-nobody.

A weak growl, a bubbling scrunch of sneer on her lips. She used the rage at herself and managed to chase away all the remnants of weakness, while stomping her foot once into the elevated rock, through the anguish of her bone, which made the sides of her eyes to water. She had objectives to accomplish. She had a goal: find out more about this place, get the essentials for survival and get back to Zootopia. Or… find Nick Wilde.

Quick as a rabbit, Judy went on to her original path of fulfillment, the buildings protruding from the rock were full with mammals scattered about with their sales, group chatters, while those of craftsmanship, they were engrossed in the matters of tool manipulation upon iron, rock, wood and wires. The buildings hung or bulged like random-fused limbs, with the colors dark and bodies stark.

There it was, the imprint of the tailoring place, the many materials of color strung in strings coiled and exposed to the eyes of passing people. It was here within this tarp-covered space of habitance. There were some smaller mammals on the higher level of the opened building, while above were the sheet-metal scraps fixed into place. The mammals socialized close the railing of wood, by the steel column of the elevated porch, but as she sighed and began climbing up the steps, she immediately noticed all the eyes on her, which got her fur raising behind the small of her back. Rogue threads were stuck on the corners of the steps, as well as other materials of peeled rock and fur of mammals old.

Leather pelts were strung onto hoops with different colors and… furs? These were the pelts of mammals! Her heart throbbed, then her ears were mingled with the prior-engine-ringing that infused into something new, which made her deaf for moments unsung. After everything witnessed-prior, this wasn't an unexpected reality-possible. She now knew that the worst didn't rarely happen, as it usually happened, especially to her in her quest of purpose and meaningfulness. The foldable door, to the insides of the wooden building, was fully opened like the mouth of a hungry monster, while threads tickled in the air from their spools by the steady wind. The sounds of machinery within whirred ever so closer with each undertaken step…

She halted at the wooden frame and peered inside, where darkness loomed, while in the hearth a glow emanated shapes of mannequins or hangers in clothes, tools of different uses and other specific-related items of necessity. There was a stale scent that skulked, it carried dampness in the mix of that old memory that her grandfather's clothes kept upon and around his essence now-not-present.

"Hello?" Judy called out into the establishment, and the whirring lessened to fragments of the past.

"Here!" a high voice called, but Judy was reluctant to take the risks of unknown, especially after a glance towards the extended pelts of mammals-gone… But then, what was the worst that could happen? Wasn't she deadlier than the usual mammal anyways? A bad thought flashed through her mind in the shape of her own broken bone, with which she was to use to stab the person that would have done that to her… The sight inside her head made her leg to sprout pain, and she shivered with a sigh that was left behind her.

Her experience was bellowing at her to go back and never make the same mistake, by putting herself in an enclosed space with limited exits, yet… the liveliness from outside was somehow comforting her poor soul, this was too close to Diablo's reach for anything improper to occur, especially as she had seen how he delivered order and discipline... She was somehow sure that no one would try anything funny, or she wanted to be sure.

Her ear flew up to the sound of shuffling in the shadows on her side. This had been a bad idea from the start. The realization made her stop and push all her blood away from her head so that she could have a clearer awareness. Another shuffle from behind a mannequin in the wooden shape of a taller mammal… She stood still, primitively thinking that any movement would initiate the attack, but just as she was to start fleeing towards the brighter freedom behind, a shape of blur escaped from underneath the heavy coat of the mannequin, with a growl-yell of authentic strike-predatory. Her cloak fell and she braced herself to brake teeth and run away, but the blur stopped before her and she noticed who the predator was…

A cougar cub with cute-white whiskers and colorful straps on his tiny paws that were in the air in imitation for a pounce, but Judy's awareness was on such an overdrive that she had become an embodiment of justice and defiance, to which the cub's innocent smile faded, and with a tucked tail, he ran away into the hearth of the building, shouting in panic, "Auntie-Auntie, crazy pers— crazy person!" Trying to assimilate what had happened, Judy attempted to assert her emotions in order, but they were running too wild to be currently tamed…

It was just a playful cub, nothing else… No danger for her life, no need for violence. The cub had called her a crazy person… Was she really losing her mind so much that it was showing to everyone in front of her? Was the cripple the same witness to her ludicrous existence? The tapping of paws and hoofs started moving from the hearth, and Judy turned her attention to there, only to be blinded by a very nasty light.

" _That the person_?... Ey! Rabbit, we don't want trouble! _Kindly_ go away," the feminine voice called out from behind the blindness, but Judy squinted her eyes further and munched her lips in quiz.

"Can you stop that, please?" Judy asked and heard the murmurs from the flow of vision.

"Turn around and don't hurt anybody."

"I'm not go— Listen, I just need to get my shirt fixed, I'll be on my way!" Judy said strongly, to which no immediate answer tried to creep-up, until the light faded and the shape of a tall reindeer could now be seen at the end of the rows of clothes and spools.

" _Not crazy, Tommy, just in need. You scared her, didn't you?_ "

" _Yea… but she scare me more!_ "

"Silly boy, oh, _rabbit_! Sorry, come here!" Judy didn't know why, but somehow this touch with innocence had brought her a slight amount of joy in the emptiness within. She grabbed her cloak and rushed to meet the taller reindeer, who was in a blue skirt and brown shirt. There was some jewelry hanging from her antlers, while in her hoofs was the heavy flashlight and a seam ripper, which was being handled like a shiv at that current moment of overflowing emotions. "Tommy, tell the…" the reindeer opened her hoof towards Judy in anticipation, while realizing that she was appearing dangerous with the ripper in her pointing hoof, thus fixing her mistake quickly by putting it between the space of her skirt and shirt.

"Lilac," Judy stated, while blinking remorsefully at the cub, who was now hiding behind the skirt of the tall reindeer.

"Tell Lilac you're sorry and that you'll never do that again," the reindeer said, yet ordered, sweetly to the cub behind her, but he only pulled on the cloth and groaned unwantingly.

"No need!" Judy intervened with her two paws trying to go in the air, to which the cub flinched behind, "I understand, there's nothing wrong in games, Tommy," Judy soothingly reassured, "I am sorry for giving you a scare, that should be fair, yea?" The cub peeked after Judy's words and stared at her, while she smiled genuinely at the bright innocence. And then, she noticed a tug of smile in return that got her heart to skip a lovely beat.

"Rare one you are, Lilac. Oh, Tommy, go find me thin red yarn, would you?" the reindeer asked, to which the cub looked up and quickly reacted with a rush of steps into the deeper parts of the place. "Sorry for the bad welcome, Lilac. Just that I was busy, and there are bad mammals sometimes coming in… I can't know all the time. Oh, how silly of me, Beka," she extended her hoof towards Judy, to which she flinched, but smiled awkwardly in a façade that managed to fool the older femammle. They shook, and Judy looked around herself once more, spotting more tools of the trade and a steam ironer, surprisingly.

"You needed your shirt fixed, yea? Rips, tears? Missing sleeves?" Judy just opened her cloak, and Beka frowned a little. "Where have you been? Don't tell me you escaped from Belcher's!" Judy stood, flummoxed like a total idiot, but shook her head in the mumbles of her disoriented words. The hell was a Belcher?

"Bel— no-no, just a scuffle and _stuff_ …"

"I know stuff, _stuff_ my antlers! _Guh_ , this makes me mad when I see it… okay, let me take a closer look," she motioned Judy to follow, and they stepped into the center of the tailoring space. Beka took her rightful place on one of the vintage sewing machines, while Judy popped her leftover buttons and slid her shirt off her tufted fur, using the cover of wool to keep her decency perfect. She slid the cloth through the crack, and Beka took it closer to her eyes, to which she wheezed and muttered some sure curses.

" _Grh_ , needs a few hours or something. You in a hurry?" Beka asked, to which Judy's eyes danced-uncertain, and she shook her head. "Good-good, I'll get it done. No promises that it'll look great, but it will work, okay?"

"Okay. _Ughm_ , could you tell me the nearest place for supplies? I mean, I saw tasers, but I n—"

"Lilac, where are you from?" That same question, Judy's ears had frozen in the air and she was using all her willpower to keep them that way, as the femammle was too good not to be able to decipher that simple body betrayal. Last time she had told the truth of her habitance was met with a radical exit.

" _Noooot_ from here?" Judy drew in the form of a question-answer, while the reindeer scoffed with a roll of her eyes and a tck-tck that exposed her disapproval.

"No wonder, at least I know that what they're telling us is true. I guess that place is worse than those fanatics. And many think there's nothing worse than a furless lunatic. _Pft_ , you'll be fine here. I just pity those who are going to try and go there. Got another wave of them today. Poor silly souls." Judy wanted to ask more, but Beka grabbed a long-brown belt and pulled it from both sides with a loud slap. "Why'd he want me to make a bigger belt, the last one was perfect!"

"Auntie-Auntie, I found the blue one!" called the cub in a rush from another room, while stopping readily in front of the chuckling reindeer.

"Good, ughm… Tommy, that's a thread, not a yarn. Just… find me the red one, okay, silly?"

" _Oh_ … okay!" he called and nearly traversed into a sprint, when he stopped and waved at Judy with a giggle amidst the return to the task at paw.

"The only light left in this world, Lilac… _Nevermind_ , yes, you can find that after the stairs outside and to the left, you should see it. His name's Jarold, a chubby fellow. You can't miss him. I guarantee you _all_ my threads."

" _Oh_ , thanks! _Ughm_ , I'll come by later then, thank you again!" Judy beamed and felt a rush of energy surge inside of her, hence she actually skipped towards the exit. Her eyes caught a small laugh behind her, but she was now too energized to stop and contemplate, due to receiving proper behaviour at last from a place that nearly gave her another heart attack. The steps nearly managed to trip her from the haste, but before she was to jump onto the elevated rock outside, a big-winged creature dropped from the topless sky and onto her desired spot. She almost collided into it from shock, but succeeded in stopping on the last swarfy step.

There was something like a thick basket on its back, while several belts encircled its leather-hugged frame and pierced through the holes in the ebony wings. It was a bat, a big bat, who extended its membranous wings widely from the end of its hands to the ankles of its feet, which quadrupled his width, while its body arched up to its full height that extended over Judy's own more than double. It then slumped down and put its hands on the ground, resembling the posture of an ancient pterodactyl, until _he_ rotated swiftly to Judy's disability to hide her gawp. He wasn't just a bat, there were fangs looming like stalactites from his jaw below his stump-pinkish nose, while the belts circled the front of his darkly clothed body. He resembled a good-deal of that same bat-statue!

His inner side of the wings were semi-transparent, with his veins of nutrition taking the focus of the eye. The bat smiled his fangs at her and straightened his back to the previous of height, the many pouches and vials shuffling audibly from his belts, while he reached a tug for the collar of his shirt's neck that protruded above his black-unbuttoned coat. He sidestepped and bowed to Judy gracefully.

"Apologies, Miss. I had seen you not," he said with his deep voice that vibrated in the air before her, while the accent had slickness of anachronism and… style? She was petrified at first from his appearance, and still her eyes were being drawn towards his piercing fangs. Nevertheless, his respectful demeanor managed to let her ears go up and her head to show him an accepting nod. He clasped his wings in a short gust of air to her positive reaction and pulled on his lapels. It was very strange of seeing clothing severed on both sides, yet looking as if part of his body and wings. She had seen such on pictures and the internet, but as always, real life couldn't be properly shown through pictures or videos, it had to be tasted with one's own body and touch.

"Need thou aid?" he asked by taking a step closer, to which she heard scraping and noticed his hooked claws on his legs, which resembled that of sickles: sharp-hooked sickles. Somehow, this was the last mammal she wanted a guiding paw from.

"No, thank you, I'll be on my way," was her awkward reply of a jump, to which the bat gave her a beam of understanding and bowed his head low.

"Of course, Miss. The pleasure was mine," he said respectfully and then flapped his wings up the stairs with such strength that she felt a tinge of disbalance from the disgruntled air. Secretly his path was followed by her peripheral, until he became lost in the same place she had so-recently exited. An amount of relief un-flooded her body, but then she felt a sense of danger to those inside. Still… just because the bat had unsavory parts on his natural body, such didn't mean that he was actually dangerous. The same argument was to be made about foxes being sly and untrustworthy. She was not supposed to make speciest deductions by just meeting someone and noting body parts or folklore of society… Tho, those two foxes had lived-up to society's prejudiced convictions, Nick had even exceeded them like no one else on this putrid earth…

She looked left in the attempt to bounce herself off-subject. Something sparkled in the end and between the many buildings that were scattered in, above and out the body of rocks, while a one of those giant columns-prior-met towered in the distance.

The sparkle, it turn into an orange flare that bore the inscription of a contrast-white ' _Zap 'em, 'til they foamin'!_ ' that was readable from even the great of distance.

Yea, that was it. That must've been where Jarold was at.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

\- _On a note of seriousness, I have been considering what to do during the past month. A website is being developed for writing and editing services, while other stuff have been infecting my time. That has made me realize that I can't really finish-off this incredibly long story. What I can do is finish AAC, but I don't know if I would be continuing anything further of it. It's not due to the lack of planning or ideas, as my story has a very full and rich world, with many events taking place during the rest of the story, many characters, many issues of moral shades. But it's just the entrance of reality that such doesn't help me in the struggle of life, while the only copyright I have is that of my own creations within a work that is already not mine, due to the fact of fan-fiction._

\- _Sure, if the issue of financial stability wasn't a barrier, I wouldn't be having this informational defiance in the notes, but it's been 2 years now and reality is kicking in. Thank you for understanding._

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	34. Jarold's Place

**Chapter Thirty-Four**

 **Jarold's Place**

Judy entered through the lackluster door of Jarold's shop which was labeled as Jarold's Place underneath that sparkle of attention that which had attracted her eyes in the first of places. The air tickled with that same scent she remembered from the room with the wombat engineer. There were these tall shelves in the middle of the shop stacked with different kinds of electronics and tools. She even saw… a sword?

" _Last time was less!_ " complained a voice from behind the shelves, thus Judy moved around and came to view a sight of flummox. Guns upon guns of different calibre and designs. The oldest seemed to be at the bottom while the newest were high up in the air and surely out of reach to the aged bull behind the barrier of showcases.

" _Last time is last time,_ " the bull pointed at his showcase and then at the tigress before him, who did look rather unhealthy-bony.

" _Was yest'day, Jardy…_ " Judy stopped at a smart distance from the tigress and observed the exchange between the two. Apparently, only the obese bull had noticed her presence. He snorted with a bounce of his big belly and crossed his big arms.

"'Xactly, pay up or bug-off. Got other mal waiting." The tigress' eyes faltered as she spotted Judy. She grasped the plastic bag of stuff closer to herself and silently tucked tail out of the shop. Curiosity bid Judy to ask what _was that for_ , but she was given the answers to luck of chance.

"Not with her head. Wants to make deal with bats, but they not pay her anything if she not use the medical tool," the bull said with a sigh and a gesture towards a sophisticated syringe underneath the showcase. It had a dull shiny tip and a transparent-glass body that extended towards the piston, which had a mechanism of a small and digitalized monitor. "What you need, small creature?" the bull huffed her out of her stare.

"Oh, _ughm_ … Wanted to see what you've got an—"

"Got money?" he interrupted without a blink.

"Hu— _yes_ -yes! Just need something for… defense, yea," she quickened at the bad scenario of doubt that her nationality may cause if found. She had to blend in with the people, or she could be taken advantage of or worse.

"Defense! Just what you must have! I got just the thing for you. Hope you got tough paw or…" he lost himself in the rummaging of a chest beneath the rows of weaponry. "Aha!" he excitedly boomed around the shop's air, but then a loud crackle further made disgruntlement to the peace of heart. Judy jumped in her spot from the harsh sound and nearly gave flee to outside. "Bit heavy. Teld me they'd found it on a badger below Belcher. See how it feel," he leaned over the showcase and hoofed Judy the red-painted stunstick.

It was heavy for sure but she had expected to feel metal and coldness. It was however encased in wood padding around its grip that had symbols of unknown meaning. She wondered if the color was from the blood of the deceased badger, but chose to forget that fact.

"C'mon, fire it up!" the bull encouraged with almost childish expectancy, hence, Judy found her way to the trigger on the grip and pushed a reaction of deafness and blinding fury of pain in front of her. She nearly dropped it from the shock of the vibrations and heat that came from the muzzle. "Atta'girl. Zap 'em 'till they foamin'! It got a flashlight too, on the back," he pointed at the butt of the stunstick, where Judy touched a squishy surface of leather. She pressured it with some strain until it clicked, and the bull winced from the beam of light that tried to scourge his eyes.

"Damn it, little creature!"

"Sorry," Judy quickly apologized and hastily shut the light off. It had glowed pure white like the moon's prime. Jarold rubbed his beady eyes and actually chuckled.

"It even got a crank, lemme find it just…" Jarold hustled out of the main room and somewhere to the back during which Judy took her time to try and sink it what had just happened in the timelapse of seconds. What she was holding appeared stronger that anything she had ever wielded, this wasn't something anyone could get on the market. Actually, this wasn't even legal to be owned by ordinary citizens in Zootopia. Hell, the police force was forbidden of using such high volumes of electricity against anyone, as tasers were as hard as the amps would go. But so much heat and force, this could actually kill.

There were thick jackets hanging on the other part of the room, adjacent to knapsacks, repair kits, sleeping bags, portable electrical stoves and other survival necessities. It reminded her of the hunting shops in Lapiny, one of the bigger cities in Bunnyburrow, just vividly amplified with deadliness, illegality and usage. Wait, was that a hazmat suit with an oxygen tank?

"There it is! My eyes are going down, little creature. Could do so much back then…" the bull lost himself in thought at the tiny, only such in his hoofs, crank device, yet he shook himself out the stupor and threw the part at Judy, who quickly reacted with an accurate grab. Why did mammals do such stupid things? "Next to the trigger for the _zap_ , there's a clasp. Pull it out and plug the little grinder."

Judy tried to follow his instructions but her lack of experience forbade her from finding that mentioned clasp. She searched for it for so long that the bull couldn't hold himself from groaning and calling her to give it to him, which she did.

Loud coughing signaled the entrance of another mammal who, by the heaviness of the steps, was sure to be several heads higher and wider than Judy. It was a big grizzly bear with heavy clothing and belt utilities. A burly cigar was in his scarred mouth, while his only paw held the bottle of unknown liquids.

"You hide stuff from me, Splicer," the bear puffed out the sweet-smelling smoke and leaned against the shelf that scrunched against his crushing weight. Jarold scowled down to the concrete floor, while pushing the tiny crank into the device and putting it close to the edge of the showcase.

"You're spewing bullshit."

"Yea?" the bear growled with a thrust away from the shelving and closer to the taller bull. "They taking climb today. You looking empty on bag and battery." The accusation was taken with a scoff, however, the bear took a step too close to Judy's space and safety, and it made her groan with a quick reaction off.

"Watch your step, _oaf_ ," the bull shouted at the perplexed bear who looked down in search for what he was to step onto, until meeting Judy's existence in a bite to his cigar.

"Who cares one less rodent, tell me ab—"

"Do not use speciesm here or I'll kick your ass down to Belcher!"

"Your softness these small pests will get you _nowhere_."

"I am not a pest!" Judy scorned at the bear but neither of his ears nor eyes even flicked at her, as if she didn't exist for him.

"Now, I've threaten you not play tricks, but you fail listen. Now, now I tell you life will be not easy anymore. Understand, Splicer?" The stare between giants clouded the surroundings but neither of them budged a blink. That seemed to infuriate the bear further.

"Get the fuck out my shop," the bull pierced with apathy at the bear whose cigar cracked under his jaw's clench. He took it out his mouth, in between the hold of his bottle, and ashed it on the showcase slowly, as if mocking the bull's lack of response. And then he just left the place with the distant coughs of his being.

Jarold blew the ash away from his glass and murmured faint words, while Judy stood in anticipation for an explanation, furthermore, feeling a sort of relief for the defense that was received from the big mammal. "An awful person. He always cared about himself, see those sorry-emigrants as walking cash. Not only are they going to that awful place above, but they can only take a small amount of belonging." He gestured at the stunstick and she remembered that the crank had been attached, thus taking it and giving it a whirring go.

"Does wonder if battery drop dead. Such saved my life once when I lost my way to the cave system. If it not for the crank for my flashlight, I'd be dead…"

She wanted to ask how big was the Noc but deferred to a better question that wouldn't expose from where she had come from, "How big are the tunnels?"

"Ha! Like big! I mean, I not even know, nobody knows! But," he cut off in enthusiasm while reaching underneath what was visible, hence, pulling a hoof-drawn map of wide margins and old paper-yellow. But since she was short and below the showcase, the bull noticed and motioned to her to get up which she did through the pains of her injuries. Nonetheless, all that pain was worth it as her curiosity was steaming.

"We're top-most, below's the Bazar. I think they're organizing a convoy soon for the Twilight's. There's lots of tunnels from here to there, but they're populated. Now, see Belcher's? It's under the Bazar, and it does take a while to get there. They've made like an outpost to keep the freaks away. A very unsavory place." But Judy couldn't see anything else after the Belcher region, because it was random tunnels that stopped to a certain extent. It was like roots that had tried to reach somewhere, yet had rotted during the journey in failure. The Bazar, on the other paw, looked like a sphere. Nature didn't create spheres…

"What's after Belcher's?" Judy asked as she inched her paws on her knees in the zoom of her lilacs.

"I think there's something down there. The main tunnels are dug in a circular shape. That means that the diggers had created something there, but many of the main tunnels are collapsed after Belcher's. That's where I got lost, but I did get to—" Jarold halted through visible newly arisen suspicion. He _ahemed_ and gestured towards Judy to move back from the map so that he could roll it back. "But that's in the past, I'm sure there's someone down there. These earthquakes are not random, they're explosions. But who would listen to an old mammle like me anymore?"

"I believe you!" Judy piped up with a fist in the air. His words had moved her in an adventurous way, ergo, her reaction rubbed off on the bull's good side as he snorted.

"Yea, guess you do…" This was her moment to try and ask more questions as she saw liking to this big mammal.

"Why are these ma— emigrants going to that _awful_ place?"

"They not believe the Keepers' words. Especially after they let this tyrannical military spread into the Noc. We is fine 30 years ago, but now it's constant interrogations and spying and kidnapping. They didn't allow anyone to leave then, it's only recent this. Those military scumbags said that it's because we have the right to have a choice, and if we'd choose death up there, so be it. I think people have hope that all of it is lies and that the world above is actually better and not the wasteland it is. But it is a wasteland…"

"It's not a wasteland!" Jarold squinted his eyes at her.

"Of course it is, they all se—"

"It's a paradise compared to… to _this_!"

"Are yo— Where are you from?" the bull quickly shot at her in a very strained frown, but she didn't manage to stop herself from making clarity on her point. She hated lies, especially after her last trip of emotional heartache.

"From Zootopia, and it's not the place you think it is," his surprise turned into seriousness quickly and his hoof slowly reached towards something under the showcase. Judy was so engrossed in wanting to show Jarold the truth that she didn't realize what he was doing, "there's order and good people, it's clean and there's fairn—" The outside door, which surely was hidden in the frame when she had entered, crashed into metal with the light lowering within the room to an uncomfortable extent. She understood too slowly that she was once more within a room with a mammal that could crush her into dust.

"Open the door!" she yelled between her raging chest that was trying to escape the room on its own. Jarold stood motionless on his spot tho, nevertheless, she remembered the heavy object in her paw and quickly used the flashlight to blind the idle mass of fat Jarold, consequently, he put his hoof over his eyes with a grunt, but then she flared the tip of the stunstick that made Jarold to instantly recoil back at the long reach of the electricity. "Stay away, I mean it! Open the door and let me go! Right now!" she ordered with motes of despair, but Jarold actually gave a groan of irritation.

"Listen, little creature, calm down. You're blinding me…" Judy moved back at the other side of the shelves, all the while being on the cold showcase glass.

"Then open the door!"

"Calm down, I want to help you," Jarold said patiently with a voice that had actual empathy within.

"So what if I'm from Zootopia? We're not some kind of animals that you think we are, you are the animals!" Judy sneered in disdain at all the events that she had went through. But when the bull didn't budge from his spot and calmly waited under the shield of his open palms, she decided to give him a chance for explanation, thus stopped the light and waited at a calculated distance of safety. After all, she had the crackle of pain available in the push of a trigger. Jarold sighed and rested his back on the wall behind him.

"If it's true that you're from there. Whatever you do, little creature, do not spread misinformation," Jarold inquired at the befuddled Judy. "They will not tolerate you, they've never tolerated anyone."

"But Zootopia is not a warzone!" Her words struck anxiety in the big bull who motioned his bulky finger in front his lips and _shhhhed_.

"Be quiet… Look, I not know if it is or not. I not find out, they've logged me since I managed to get a phone working. I believe they have a reason to not let people up. You say it's paradise, but you got no proof. Just word. Nobody returns when going up. Nobody."

"Why would they return from paradise?!"

"Because it not exist! No one I know has come back from there. Only Zootopians or Mammalians or whatever you are, would come down here because they know it's bett—" Jarold tried to persevere but received a scandalized bunny with a thumping leg.

"It's real, it's real and it's there. There are cars and electricity and roads and planes and buildings and—"

"Little creature… this is tiring, just… Whatever you do, it's best to tell none where you're from. Otherwise… well, I just hope you never come to be imprisoned by _them_ ," Jarold surrendered and turned around, thus, she actually saw that there was no tail anywhere around the tailhole of his many-pocketed pants, just an ugly stump. "Any type of memory devices, receivers, transmitters or cameras are forbidden by the military. If you get caught with one, you will disappear. _Forever_."

"How do you know that? You said you had a phone, and you're here!" Judy stepped closer, still pointing the deadly stunstick at him, but she saw sadness in his expression that sulked. His hoof reached under again and the door audibly opened with new light.

"If you like that, I'd be 65 dollars. Special discount for special creatures," he exulted at her with visible fakeness that could be seen through the crack of his dourness. Judy gazed at the device and pondered if it was worth getting it. Her thumb traced the smooth wood, next, she gripped it hard into her paw and pointed it at Jarold with new determination that lacked the unspoken threat of violence.

"Sold," she asserted to the amusement of the bull who went to the back and out of Judy's sight. Her cloak was tugged to cover her better, and she wondered the objects underneath the glass she was stood at. There were some kind of analog detectors, one she recognized to be measuring magnetic fields. "Hey!" she shouted so Jarold could hear her, "where are these emigrants situated?" Silence was what her words gave triumph to, however, the hustling sounds started anew.

" _Outside town before the hillside. Should be leaving soon. Good that greedy oaf not get anything from them,_ " Jarold came out from the back with a beam of satisfaction while holding what looked like a leathery-brown sheath. But then she grazed eyes up the wide belly and into his caution. "You not thinking of encouraging them with your _truth_ , are you?"

Judy felt some kind of defiance at the bull's persuasions of obedience, consequently, absolute dislike spoke her lips, "I am."

" _Ehh_ , I warned you," he decided heartlessly and put the sheath close to Judy with a dismissive throw. "You have supplies?" he asked as she was trying to push her stunstick within, and she pursed her lips in decline. "Not having a sort of bag here is like walking naked… let me see one that'd fit you." Jarold went up to the hanging knapsacks and started throwing them left and right, as if going through a thick jungle, while Judy took the moment to try and tackle the issue of where to put the now-heavy sheath. She could just tuck it in between her pants but it wasn't going to fit.

"Not find for you exactly… but, it's just going to be slightly bigger. Smaller not cut it, it'd be useless… Here!" he boomed with vigor and pulled out a scrappy knapsack that was engulfed in dust from the deeper parts of the shelving. It looked to have been cut at the front, which was repaired with black threads, while discoloration of deep red was splattered around its back where patches of material were sewn onto. "Try it," Jarold said as he passed her the, small for him, bag. She put it hesitantly on her back and felt it hit the backside of her knees in largeness. But being the practical country bunny she was, she pulled the straps and it now was level with her back, only to have the long-hanging straps dangling around her almost to the knees.

"Perfect, give it to me for a moment." Jarold took the knapsack from Judy and went to the back again. There were the sounds of rummaging and clanks that ceased with his emergence that had the new addition of a calculator in his hoof. The bag was dropped on the showcase with audible heaviness, and he tapped on the big calculator slowly. "With it… it's going to _beeeee_ all… 86 dollars and eighty-three cents," he sang with approval towards Judy, and she closed the cloak into herself. Then she gave him the required sum that he took with grace, while she put on her knapsack over her back. Yea, he had added something inside for sure, but she'd check it out later. Just as she was to jump off the showcase, her mind crashed with a wiggle of her nose.

"Do you have tranquilizer darts?" Judy asked the quizzical bull.

" _Ughm_ , yea-yea. Manual insertion?" he asked to which she nodded. "How strong do you want them?"

"The strongest." She didn't want to overspend thus was why she only wanted the darts in few.

"How many?" Jarold had stopped half-way down the showcase in the patient gaze that was waiting for Judy's answer. She wiggled her lips in the search for clarity, until it came.

"Two." Jarold smirked and lowered himself down to find that what she needed, while Judy wondered if two really was going to cut it at all.

At least… at least this was going to be her insurance policy for the worst. But even with the strongest dose, would they work on a mammal like that elephant monstrosity in the engine place?

She could only harbor hope, as hope was what was left within her.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


	35. Duality of Karma

**Chapter Thirty-Five**

 **Duality of Karma**

Judy had stocked-up on food and water within her slightly-oversized knapsack, and she had realized during her shopping for survival that everything was too cheap if given contrast with the products in Zootopia or even with those at her hometown. The strangest part was that even her family-farm's prices were higher and such was disgruntling to the mind, heart and logic-disemboweled. She had even left her change to a happily surprised elderly porcupine from whom she had bought parsley and cucumbers. They weren't fresh by any means but the food still had the qualities of being edible and beneficial.

Nonetheless, there were worse places in the… well, she could call it a town as it was rather densely populated. The absence of real sky overhead that was faked by the glow of houses and other unknown objects, instead of stars, made her dislike the claustrophobia-enveloping to the stuckness and lack of exodus… Apparently tho, there was no choice but to gulp the reality down, just like Diablo had told her to do, just like Nick had advised her to do, just like the world had forced her to.

In her quest of finding the place with the emigrants, she had come heads-on with the good and ugly places of the town. She had also witnessed the worst, which was a big, steep and deep pit filled with the stench of feces and sewage. It wasn't the smell or idea that she was witnessing a big hole of shit, surrounded by houses and people about, it was that there was someone in the middle of it all who was swimming in all that filth dastardly. Because she was going to puke, she had decided to just find another route to her exploration of this odd world, while labeling that exact spot in town as the worst spot on earth. Was this how Jarold saw the place being better 30 years ago? What, was the height of feces smaller then? Was he out of his narrowing mind?

At least now, when she was equipped with her necessities and dirty appearance, people didn't actually care to stare at her, as she was blending in. Maybe if she had went for such a swim, she'd have been in the perfect disguise as a mammal of Nocturian prestige. There had even been the craziest of event that was played out on the motorized-less streets. A couple of electric motorbikes had flashed through them and had nearly driven over Judy and other people of unluck.

The drivers hadn't seemed to care and were above average height. After all, it was all one road and it was to be shared with everybody. Tho, good riddance, a big elephant had managed to grab one of the uncaring drivers and had thrown them in some kind of box, over which the giant prey had sat on with scorn. It wasn't mammane, but who was she to question justice when served without wrongness, as long as it didn't cross the line that which was death or torture.

After quite some hours of wandering around and just absorbing all the sights this unique and old place had to offer, she finally managed to get out of town and head towards what looked like a hill-mountain. Light had grown scarce and it could only be seen behind her now, so she had to take her stunstick and use its multi-functionality to guide her steps. There was no one on the path she was walking, and she was unsure if this was the right way, until noticing a sign with a skull that read beneath _Restricted Area, Militarized Zone Ahead. Martial Law in Effect!_

Yes, this had to be the way to the ladder of lies, this was the place Jarold had told her about, and she mused what else she was going to find. What was this transition going to look like and why did it even exist? The rocky road was narrow and uneven while her feet felt cold on the rock that lacked that same heat of the town. There was a breeze of frost going around her exposed fur of her head, consequently, she nestled the black tips underneath the cloak. All of a sudden all hospice had left the cavernous realm and the only vision she was given was by her trust stunstick companion. Distant sound flapped in the unreachable air, but no silhouettes could be comprehended in the darkness, only the distant glow of the town she had willingly left, glow which grew smaller with every step trod.

The loneliness here was like a swarm of suffocation that sprouted around her closer and closer. Her determination was keeping her fierce, yet the ambience of the unknown couldn't be transcribed, so her instinct was scratching at her nerves to turn around and go back to safety. Everything around was barren, bumpy rock that lied asleep in the remains of the volcanic past-disturbed. Its shapes weren't natural, almost like detonations many that had made it thus uneven, jittery and violated.

Something metallic glinted in the distance. It looked like a very old truck that was missing its wheels and other external parts like mirrors and windows. The only thing left of it was the heavy chassis which resembled the bones of a long-forgotten corpse. Another leftover of machinery rested in a hole-inverted. She deducted that it was an excavator with new paint of dark rust, but as she flashed over it with her strong, white light, she found a graveyard of vehicles and machinery scattered everywhere in very tight rows, while a tall cliff encircled the resting place's borders. Many of them lacked parts on their bodies, while most of them were vehicles for construction and excavation. No wonder the town had so much sheet metal.

The path led to a narrow valley where something very big was blocking the way. It was a giant dump truck that had fallen on its side, while the cargo of its enormous dump box had now created a steep hill of grinded rocks. She could try and climb the valley's walls but they seemed excessive and dangerous in this biblical darkness. The risk would be less if she just climbed over this deteriorated monstrosity. The scent of dust and staleness was dominant. The coldness festered in her visible breath that mangled the only light, while the silence lingered in uncomfortable jeering of wind. She began climbing the hill of pebbles, steel rods, concrete and… it did resemble sand, but way less refined. The trips and slides were many, until one such slide made her to fall chest-on the surface and feel a hard probe on her ribs that tried to enter her body like a plunging knife.

She couldn't hold her yell of excruciation and rolled on her knapsack now-coated-grey, while the spot of pain spread all the way to her waist. This object nearly pierced her chest! Her mouth let whimpers exit her for unsteady-time, and as the pain finally lowered, she glared at the reason for her suffering through the blurry curtain of her lilacs. But so what if she was looking at its direction, she had to illuminate it with vision…

That was a decision she wished she hadn't done as from beneath the rubble were poking the calcified beige of sharp ribs, which got her tail to electrify and her legs to scurry her up the pile of damnation quicker than a rocket's blast. The top wasn't any better due to the harsher wind now being able to hit her face and try and sneak underneath her cloak. Sure, she had the choice to just go back to the town and bring herself the comforts of primitive civilization, but she wanted to meet those people who were walking into a bright future, she had to see the truth and lies for herself. She had to know for sure if Zootopia was built on top misery, bones and degrading deception.

There was a faint glow in the distance of black, and it seemed to be not too far, but now came the problem of the climb down, with the dangers of tripping and getting impaled by metal, bones or other hidden hazards. Sure enough, the climb down was way slower and harder for her shins and knees, as at one point they gave in and she nearly was to begin rolling down like a furry barrel. The bag wasn't helping with its added weight at all… Good thing she had trained in extremes during her time at the farm and ZPA, ergo, such weight and pain wasn't something new to her existence at all. Nevertheless, it was disliked with all her thinking might.

Her feet finally touched solid cold rock, and she continued the struggle through the valley of passages. There was a lot of trash along the way with strange glowing mushrooms growing many and confident. Curiosity made her want to see the rare fungus up-close, but her handshake with that engine was keeping her to the center of the eroded path. There were lots of clothes of different gauges as well as bags and cases… It made her shiver from the memories of history and film that showed exactly similar conditions to the war times of the past. The genocide of species, the genocide of races. Hopefully none of this came even close to that distant historical occurrence.

The air between her tucked ears tingled with superstition with a feeling that someone was watching her, which would make her turn around with her light, stop and stare into the sound of nothingness, while dusty particles would move around the vision of the stunstick's head. There was no one or nothing, yet it was as if there was someone or something. The anxiety of the unknown fueled her muscles with magical nutrition and she reached the top of the climb quicker than she would've if there was light, sun and singing birds.

There, where the path linked into another bigger and level road was a formation that resembled an intersection. There were signs that pointed at all the three directions. The one from where she had come read _Redemption's Step,_ the one on the left _No Mamm's Bridge_ and the one on the right was _Life's Border_. Underneath them all was the warning sign _This is a military zone. Martial law is in effect. Disobedience will be punished autonomously and severely. Do as you are commanded._

Behind these signs was where the glow was strongest, and she took some more moments to soak in all the information around her. The new road she was on had the many trails of tracked vehicles having had rolled up and down. There were many bullet casings around the trash of vehicle parts and other unrecognizable garbage of oil barrels and corroded batteries. But since she was at a high place, the road to No Mamm's Bridge lead to what looked like a well-lit compound with high walls and other details too distant to be filtered. That must've been the bridge, which was like those for trains: thick, heavy and imposing, yet only that could be seen in the antish farness. Towards Life's Border, there was nothing but a steep climb and that same repulsing darkness…

At least when she turned around from hence she had hustled her legs out, she could see the many lights of Redemption's Step and its vibrant ceiling. Removing the fact about the feces pit and the walk of paranoia, she actually saw the town as strangely alluring. It was so uneven and different, just like Zootopia itself, but way more chaotic, random and wild. Judy decided to stop thinking and just remain in the now through the colors of the distance. White, yellow, orange… Just like the towns at Bunnyburrow during the night. It lacked the glitter of stars and the endless ceiling but this constriction carried its own style, its own breath of different life that felt exuberantly sweet.

Judy shook her head away from her observations and with caution crossed underneath the sign post and towards the increasing light that was leading down towards what appeared to be like a crater filled with tents and people. She stopped at the edge and stood perplexed at the volume of living mammals scattered about, as this was no small number of emigrants. In a short way, she beamed that all of them would try to make a bright change in their lives, but then again, why were they forsaken in the first of places?

She found a tiny path that led into the encampment but noticed a very big mammal, who was guarding the same path, and she judged him to be a walrus. He had these two giant yellow fangs that extended down from his upper jaw, while his wide neck was fully wrinkled. The heavy clothes and belts he wore gave him an image of a mercenary than that of an emigrant or a member of The Keepers.

"Hi," Judy said with a wave from underneath her cloak to the tall mammal, to which he reached for his back but upon seeing Judy, he dropped his fins to slap against him and huffed with a sort of discontent.

"What what?" Judy stopped in respect and pulled on her knapsack's long straps sub-consciously.

"Going to the camp of course!" she answered in a smiley attitude, despite the stinging on her ribs that was lingering from her lungs' expansion.

"Eish! Why's dat?" he asked persistently and lowered his head so he could squint into her eyes. She could see that he wasn't old, actually rather young with his colorful skin of sangria and raisin, while his moustache was just a tiny-bit out yet.

"Because I'm heading up as well."

"Hmmm? How I know you ain't one of _'em_!" He reached for one of his sheaths, where she deducted a big knife was taking bedding to. Her mind had to find a quick answer that could satisfy this pestering mass of questions. People in the Noc weren't very bright, so what if she just…

"Because I just told you I'm not," Judy answered prooflessly to the glaring walrus. She still had her stunstick in her paw in hiding, she could always make him piss himself and run away. Only a reaction was needed tha—

" _Oh_ …" the walrus responded in embarrassment and looked away, hence, Judy took that as confirmation that she can proceed into the camp without asking why, what and _why_. She didn't expect such dullness from the mammal but apparently brawns was all he had, and she wasn't going to undertake the quest of showing him his flaws, especially when she noticed the battery-riddled rifle on his back that declared a single and clear word: power and death.

There was a building at the far end of the place that had peeling concrete and exposed metal frames hanging from its walls, therefore, she thought it was the place to start. Of course, such didn't mean she wasn't going to try to talk with the mammals currently around her.

Her ears sprung up because she could eavesdrop on a small group of sheep that were huddled around a fire. " _Now the fees are best. No! Can't chase our horns all night!_ "

" _But the Bazar has that thing, yea? We should've cocked back and collect the cogs for ourselves._ "

" _And risk us everything? With those oily bats, not a chance! And it's overdue the tact anyways._ " These lot intrigued her, and she got close to that group and _ahemed_ loudly, thus all attention was on her, yet the attention wasn't anything like a greeting or neutrality.

"Because I accidently overheard, what do you mean about pa—"

"Bugger off, you!" one of the ewes shouted at Judy, while the rest stared at her warningly.

"I just wan—"

"We don't crank, fuck off!" now one of the rams intervened with clenched fists. This was attracting too much attention at her, and she didn't want to appear suspicious, thus, she accepted the failure and moved away from the hostile group.

She tried with other people and groups, but she received the same attitude and distrust, even with those at the old building. The building had the same posters like those at The Keepers' corridors. There wasn't anything noteworthy within it because there were furrows in the walls, floor and ceiling from where the wires had been dug out and definitely melted. The people of the camp were all scruffy and wore thick clothes for warmth, while their belongings were limited to what the paw or hoof could carry. There wasn't any kind of wheeled transport, as if this was all they were taking with them.

She did manage to overhear about bats becoming a nuisance and that The Keepers were turning a blind eye to the military's efforts of control. One of the alarmed people even threw dung at her, which she managed to dodge as experience had given her the reflexes of understanding when something was coming her way, especially with cursing and manure in hoof. Everyone was on edge here. But apart from that, chatter was at a minimal volume, hence, Judy decided to seclude herself at the back of the old building and reminisce upon her failings and whys, especially to why someone would grab onto feces to throw… Not even the hillbillies in Bunnyburrow would do such disgusting feats… well, maybe she was being bias, as they would do pretty much anything… Yea…

Well, maybe if she couldn't directly get answers, she could just stick around and see what happens. Her knapsack slid off her back and she rested against it with a sigh, while going over the dimness of the short slope of the crater. There were these colors of green and blue that were in many, which made her nose to wiggle in interest. But then she noticed the same glowing thingies on the edge of the building where it met the rock. It was mushrooms! These green ones had wide hats. She nearly touched one from excitement but slapped her finger, because she didn't know its qualities and edibility or poisonous contents. Of course, she knew that luminescent mushroom existed by finding some here and there in the forests of her hometown, but this wasn't a place she expected to find them none.

" _We aren't short, go haggle by the side, come on kids,_ " came a feminine voice from around the corner of the building. Judy reached for her weapon in the trepidation of the surprise, but dropped her attempt at noticing a family of raccoons that surely lacked any ill intentions. They were packed and one could say a bit overpacked, as they clanked by Judy and sat nearby. From the two kids, the girl smiled at Judy as they passed. The femammle raccoon stopped before Judy and quickly cut the mushrooms beside her, without giving Judy even a sidelook.

" _We'll bargain an few minutes rest. I knew we'd profit quick if we went through the Dark Road, but I listen to you, Verhel. Guh!_ " Judy didn't remember noticing anyone real behind her while she trod through the darkness of that obstructive, lifeless and cold road.

So it was called the Dark Road? Fitting despite its de-creativity.

" _Okay, okay. We're basted! Let me simper some air, hon,_ " Verhel pled as he crashed his back onto the wall and dropped the weaved baskets of weight from his paws.

" _I'll let you breathe when we haggle out this hell in an hole! Just hope it's a hustle what they've been feeding us all our lives._ " Judy remained silent and attentive to all the words that were being exchanged.

" _Ma, can we play around?_ " asked the small boy as he removed his hood that showed his grey and black fur.

" _Ronny, I need you and your sister to stick by here at all times. Understand!? We've bargained about this. Sit down and do not go haggling anywhere! Verh, get some fruit out and stash this,_ " the femammle said as she gave Verhel the glowy mushrooms. Judy felt admiration and pity for the family, especially as she put herself in the small boy's shoes. Having a childhood here in the Noc must've been nothing good. Between her musings, she wasn't paying attention to what was going around her until the unconfident girl from the raccoon family was in close sight.

That startled Judy and she winced, which killed the smile off from the warmly-dressed raccoon before her. She was evidently going to run away from Judy, but Judy didn't want that to happen and appear like an unstable, psychopathic rabbit.

"Sweet cheese and crackers, no-no, don't be afraid, you just startled me… was… _thinking_ , heh," Judy gasped quickly as to try and change the already-formed opinion of the little girl. She didn't want to sound desperate, but she somehow wanted to try and brighten the spirits of the small body of innocence. Of course, that wasn't the only reason to her attempt of conversation, nevertheless, she wasn't realizing her sub-conscious actions yet.

"Oh! _Sorry_ ," the girl apologized as she put her arms around herself and rubbed them in embarrassment. Judy tried to find something that she could offer the girl but found nothing in her inventory of memory in appropriation that'd be easy to quickly get out. Nevertheless, the girl spoke through the air of unconfidence, "You got… beautiful eyes." That comment managed to crash Judy's mind so hard that her mouth gawked dumbly. It was as if she had been shot in the heart, but with a bullet of sharp warmth instead of bloodied throbs of emptiness-leaking.

"Thank you, _ughm_ … didn't expect that, _huh_ …" The girl tilted her shawled head with narrowed eyebrows of confusion.

"Nobody tell you?"

"No, no, just that… nevermind." Judy lessened the grip of her deadly shocker and her cloak opened acceptingly in shadows to the lack of threat. "You're a little princess yourself."

"Princess?" the girl asked curiously to Judy's similar expression, tho that fell into a scowl at realizing that she was underneath the earth and with a civilization trapped with squalor.

"Well, it'—"

"Mat!" the femammle raccoon yelled with a break of her voice, "What we agree to? Haggle over here _now_!" She quickly dashed towards the girl, who became mortified and lowered her head towards her apparent mother. "C'mon, haggle to your brother and don't bother other mammals. Get!"

"She wasn't bothering me at all," Judy tried to initiate a conversation, but the femammle seemed reluctant to stay and chat, furthermore, she glared her hazels at Judy as if trying to make Judy to look away and drop it, instead, Judy didn't even blink despite the soreness itchy.

"You bought well what I meant, _sweetheart_." The comment made Judy's vulnerability to churn into bitterness, accordingly, she stood harshly to the flinch of her shins.

"Why is everyone here being so hostile? For carrot's sake, she wasn't doing anything wrong, so what the fluff's your problem?!"

" _Whatever_ ," the mother shrugged off and dragged the girl towards where the rest of the family was at. But Judy was having none of that and skipped in front of them and behind the bags of belongings. Only the kids were looking at her expectantly, while the mother forcibly appeared ignorant. It was the father who was glaring at Judy with a lot of scorn.

"Are you heading towards Zootopia? Can you tell me why?"

"Mind your business, rabbit," warned the father with a dangerous curl of lips.

"It's a simple question!" she fumed loudly and noticed the girl attempting to speak, yet the mother did so before anyone could manage.

"C'mon, time's opportunities, pack-up." Everyone visibly accepted her words and shuffling began before the flabbergast Judy, who at least expected a physical confrontation, yet received probably even a worse reaction that was… this.

"What, wait, just tell me! What is up with all these signs? What do you even know about Zootopia?" But the parents of the family were actively ignoring her, while the children surely were too afraid to disobey them, even if the girl visibly was going to explode from wanting to talk and intervene. Judy understood that she wasn't being trusted and that she had to give solid proof that would make them susceptible to let her in. Words weren't going to cut it, only solid proof. Jarold had told her to keep her tongue in her mouth about this topic, but this family was just a normal family seeking refuge, these weren't the mammals from whom she needed to walk far from.

"I'm asking you because I'm from Zootopia myself." Those words froze everyone and the mother squinted her brows at Judy in full disbelief.

"I know the goods you're selling. We won't stay, so go away!" she snapped her teeth at Judy so hard that it made Judy to recoil back and reach for her stunstick, which was not on her but in the knapsack leaned at the wall. The realization spiked a hole in her stomach, nonetheless, she forced herself to persevere against the lowest of lows.

"I don't want you to stay! I want to know why they're telling you to and who is doing that."

"That's what someone who hustled Andy said, and then they raided his home and all the neighbors. Stash your deceptions. Let's go," the mother asserted and grabbed one of the last baskets. Judy had no choice, so she grabbed her ID out her wallet and stopped before the father, whose temper was leaking out his exhausted sneer.

"Read it, read it and see I'm telling the truth." The father glanced at the mother for confirmation, and she nodded after a bit of obvious deliberation. He dropped the baskets and took Judy's plastic card out her paws and then began moving his bloodshot eyes over it quickly. Judy knew those eyes: lack of sleep, while his black patterns around his muzzle had started to whiten.

"It's fake, she stakes us for mamparras," he scorned and growled at Judy, only to be pushed off-balance and slapped behind the neck by the mother. "The reaper was that for?" he whimpered at the harsh treatment of his partner, but at the exclamation, he received another of the same with a following _ow_.

"Because _you_ are the mamparra. Sit down. Scheming it's fake when you can't even read."

"I can read…"

"Cards, yea," the mother muttered, while slowly going through the details of the plastic proof. "It reads Mammalian, permanent address in… Bunnyburrow? That's not in Zootopia," the mother snapped at the bunny with furrowed brows that expected answers, like immediately.

"Zootopia is not a country, it's just a city as well as a province of Mammalia. I used to live in the province Bunnyburrow and then moved to the city of Zootopia to work a— to work. Then I got kidnapped and round-up here." The mother's expression remained unconvinced and Judy's ears fell. There really wasn't anything else up to mind that could signal additional concrete proof to be had. The raccoon kindly extended her paw with the card and Judy took it in with sadness. But then the unexpected happened as her other paw was taken strongly by the equally-tall raccoon.

"Gosh, you really are! I'm Meeka, Judy. You're from the top and have bought it all and you know. Tell me, tell me, tell us that it's not what they scheme. Please, please tell us!" Meeka was shaking Judy's paw drastically, while the grey fur around her body was leaking the anxiety of hundreds.

"You don't ser—" the father tried to intervene but was shutdown instantly.

"Open your eyes you bias twig, she is real, it is real!" Meeka turned to Judy in the impatient expectancy of the truth, and Judy's heart was actually beating faster than it was when alone on the Dark Road.

"They say it's a warzone and wasteland, right?" Judy asked to which everyone nodded in sync. "They say that there's no future there and that you'll die if you go?" Again the same confirmation. Apparently Jarold hadn't been false.

"Do they eat kids there too?" the boy asked from behind his smiley sister, yet no one told him not to be silly. Did they eat… Judy's breath hitched at the thoughts.

"It's lies," Judy concluded seriously and expected everyone's faces to fall in relief. But what she didn't expect was to be fiercely hugged by Meeka and actually brought in the air. The crushing hug made Judy to shriek in pain from her bruises, consequently, Meeka quickly released her and expressed the multiple apologies that were mingled with questions if she had broken something and that she hadn't meant that, all the while the sorrow was mixed with some kind of danceful energy of unstopabble hope.

"I'm fine, I'm fine… just don't do that again," Judy hissed as she hugged her ribs and coughed with the painful throbs of her prior bruisings. Her ear sprung in the air at this hissing sound, and she looked up.

A red flare chased the darkness above them on top the mountainous terrain, with an accompanied echo of a horn that gave Judy a jolt of unease from its notes of deepness and mystery.

" _That's it, go, go, go!_ " came a booming yell from the center of the camp, and the whole family looked at Meeka for guidance. She seemed irritated amidst her delight.

"You caching to Life's Border too?" Meeka asked Judy, and before Judy could ponder if that was the path to Zootopia, Meeka confirmed it, "You're with us. Charge your stuff and let's go. It's dangerous if we're not in groups." Judy didn't see anything to argue about and did as such. The knapsack felt heavy tho when she put in on her beaten back, apparently the aftereffects of rest removing the numbness of the walk and lonely trek. But she grunted and dashed towards the family of raccoons. The kids were in front, while both parents guided from behind.

When they reached the camp, everyone was actively moving towards the crossroads. Many of the belongings and tents were actually being left behind, which made Judy see the broader scope of desperation in everyone's actions and decisions.

If Meeka was unsure that the top was safe, everyone else must've had the same mindset about the matter. No wonder there was hostility in each and every person's eyes that she had seen and had said a quick greeting to. The edge of the crater now was encircled with many bats of different sizes, clothing or lack-therefor. Judy immediately grasped what was going on and her view twisted to turn all those bats as vultures, vultures just waiting for these desperate people to abandon most that couldn't be taken so that they could steal it for themselves.

But vultures seemed too insulting to those noble birds who sanitized nature. These bats were leeches, filthy-winged leeches. She couldn't believe herself of the thoughts she was having, but she accepted the blame that it was all due to the negative Nocturnal and Zootopian influence from a certain repulsing rabbit, an insane wolf, a prejudiced boss, a murderous weasel and an anorexic fiend.

"So this is my husband Verhel, that's Ron and that's Mati, she's a troublemaker." The kids stopped abruptly at hearing their names, but Verhel gently pushed them to walk in between the forming crowds of mammals that were exiting the crater. "We nearly bargained our chances because of this gambler," Meeka fussed and nudged her husband to his disliked unsurprise. "Say, Judy. What's it like up there? I've been pawed that there's an ball of fire in an endless ceiling!"

"Ugh, yea. It's called the sun. The _ceiling_ is the sky which is the space outside our atmosphere,"

"Aha… so how do you shut it off, this _sun_?"

"Shut it off? You can't shut it off. Our planet rotates so there's day and night. By off that's what you mean by night. But it's not controlled by anyone." Meeka sidestepped to a bigger mammal who almost stepped on her, but then she threw a small rock at the intruder and made them back off from the personal space-low.

"But who made it then?" she asked after recomposing her expression.

"Religions say gods. Science says the Big Bang."

"No-no, religions profit evil. It was crafted by people, I'm sure. Like everything here. The kids managed to haggle out some old documents from under our home—"

"I found them, Ma!" piped-up the boy, to whom Meeka smiled with approval.

"They belonged to this B.D-M, who we all know dug this place." She motioned to the air with the baskets swinging tall. "All the infrastructure was bargained by them, but nowhere it haggled anything for people living here, only diggings… But it wasn't god like those furless freaks try to force it to be, it's crafted by people… I found some books about forests, never really understood what they were. Are there any up there? Wait, please tell me there are none of these," she stopped and pointed at the bats behind them, "bloodthirsty, chewy-chomping creatures!"

"Huh, _oh_ … there are but I haven't really met any. Haven't been that long in the city you see…"

"I hope not, so pesky are these _bats_." Meeka shuddered and glared at the vultures whispering. "You hear me, you red sucklers!" Meeka shouted at the bats, but she only received taunts of improper gestures. Judy saw that it didn't even register to the raccoon's awareness as nothing else was done of reaction to that. "So what else is up there? You got water, work or more books? What about those… forests?"

"Oh, everything and more! There are schools, parks, police stations…" Judy's mood fell when she remembered her latest trauma with the police force. "Hot water, heating, transport, jobs, healthcare, libraries, internet and many other things! It's like a paradise compared to, to this." Visibly some of the words were strange to Meeka, but that didn't discourage Judy from pumping more excitement into the private air of many scents. Some of those scents carried an awful odor, but Judy was somehow developing immunity within her nostrils.

"So I can go alone outside when there's nobody around?"

"Well, of course it depends on where that is. But usually it's rather safe… As long as you keep to the safe regions," Judy smiled fakely as she remembered the _safe_ streets of Happytown. Maybe, maybe Zootopia was as dangerous as the Noc itself, just more subtle and two-faced. Meeka visibly had understood the point and had fallen silent, hence, Judy saw fit to ask some questions of her own. "Say, can you tell me more about this Noc and your lives?"

"Eh? _Ugh_ , yea, sure," Meeka said nervously in surprise. "Used to live in the Bazar, was born there. It's overcrowded and is filled with these blood-dependent bats… Then I met this piece of chewy," she joked and pulled on Verhel's tail sweetly, which made him squeak and turn around with fury at her, but when she giggled, he just continued trekking up behind the kids with a disapproving shake of head.

"He had a place, the beginning of Redemption's Step and I liked it lots. My family didn't want to haggle so I just haggled on my own with him. It was a better place, safer. Until these soldiers started bargaining with our homes and ways of life. I didn't buy the chance of having one of our children stolen from an uncontrollable zombie with a voice in its head. I'd rather turn into those _freaks_." Freaks, why was everyone saying those words and who were these _freaks?_ But that wasn't a question that was yet to her lines of interests.

"Someone told me that you couldn't leave the Noc before?"

"No, it was impossible. I mean, some haggled but they were usually caught. I heard that The Keepers have direct access to the surface from their HQ, but who am I to investigate and risk the lives of my family… When they allowed people to leave I knew that we must get out of this hole. I didn't trust them when they said there was war, because everything they were doing was aimed to own us, to not let us buy or seek information. I was unsure 'till today, but then you came along and got me real proof! I've seen similar IDs, but never the mammals to who they belonged. Just names with forgotten faces I guess."

"But why not just leave back then, why wait so long?"

"Because they want money… Verhel, is it there?" Meeka asked in a momentary hysteria to which the taller raccoon reached for his inner pockets and felt with his paws.

"Yea, safe and touchy."

"Okay, good save … See, Judy, if we could leave, we would've an long time ago. We've cached enough and I hope we'll be allowed. The last wave bargained us the price hadn't spiked. We've been caching for years, and today… Today is the day!" she said in excitement and a twitchy black nose.

"And how much is the fee?" That question was obviously disliked and the silence of steps and ruckus of the crowd was the only thing present.

"3 500… a person," Meeka grunted at the numbers, while Judy's mouth nearly wanted to say that such wasn't really that much, until she realized that here the financial situation was way worse than that above. She also realized that she merely had a small sum of the required to get out of this place. In short, she was stuck here until further notice and that plummeted Judy's mind to a depressive state of circumstances.

"What they are doing is not ethical or legal. You live on the same earth as all Mammalians and you are citizens of Mammalia by law. I remember parts of the Constitution that states: everyone born within the borders of the country is a Mammalian citizen. You are within its borders and yet, they subjugate you to this… discrimination."

"Oh, how come you know this stuff?"

"Education…" Judy deflected, because she didn't want to reveal that she was a failed police officer to them, while hoping deeply that it wasn't Mammalia's military involved, in this extortion, but highly organized crime. If it was organized crime on government level than things would be way more complicated and harder to unravel or attempt to change. Wait, why was she even thinking about change? First she had to fix her situation…

The trek up wasn't easy due to the steepness, while the sides of the wide road were full of abandoned and scrapped military equipment of trucks, crates, barrels, scrap and waste. There were also wheel-less carts, bikes, trash of plastic or rotten food. The signs were big and indicated dangers with hostile words prior-same. Such was the whole way that propagated caution and lies all the while, followed by the bulk of cables and pipes that were attached to the far wall of the cavernous place, yet the only light was that of the groups of mammals. There were no lamps hanging in the air by steel posts, there was nothing on the ceiling, there was nothing on the ground but those remnants of the propagated future labeled under the certainty of imminent _death_.

The flare had now died-off and there was nothing visible up ahead the blackness. It took some time unknown, but they were forced to go off the main road, due to the barrier of high, steel gateway that was blocking it, followed by similar bulky fences with barbed wire. They weren't manned nor lit, just dark and lifeless. Judy wondered if it was supposed to be like that and watched with slight terror at the height of it all, as the gateway and walls were situated between cliffs that were at such an angle that only the best Olympians could probably climb them. The gateway was fully plastered with propaganda that this was the last step before the worst of deaths, while graffiti scoured its surface with filthy words that brought up the lies and oppression that actually was, surely by mammals who knew better or just liked destruction.

The group turned to the side, where there was a narrow path next to the cliff's face, while edging as well to a long drop that was spelling disaster to anyone who'd make a wrong step. Here the group moved slow and tiresome as the path was very rocky and uncomfortable. If someone behind or at the front would break from the stress and start pushing everyone, she was sure that a big portion of the group would fall to their demise below. One of the kids did trip, but Verhel caught him in that very instant, scolding him for being reckless and getting a light slap by Meeka for the tone he had used.

Then they entered a mammle-made passage that lead them to a wide space enclosed by cliffs. There was lots of trash and tents everywhere, which definitely didn't belong to anyone of those present. Those first had already lit fires and were chattering through whispered hushes. Judy followed the raccoons to a part where there were the remains of another small structure of concrete and rusty rods, yet the only thing remaining was its two walls and parts of the beams that had once supported a now-roofless roof. Why were even roof needed here? It wasn't like it could rain… There were some more glowing mushrooms inside, but Meeka wasn't interested in harvesting them like prior. Everyone slumped on the ground in exhaustion and Judy actually was craving for the group to have a short sleep before they'd proceed. After all, she wasn't going to get out of the Noc anyways…

Wait, was she supposed to go back all alone? No-no-no, she couldn't…

Something glinted in the blackness on top the cliff. "Okay, this is the final barter I've been told. We rest and go, it's not safe to ponder too much," Meeka told them and the kids fussed from exhaustion that was showing on their rugged leg-wraps.

There it was, more reflections came and went. Was someone up there on the cliff? She had this spiking feeling of danger, and her superstition was spewing at her that something was to happen.

"How long until we reach this place?" Judy asked without peeling off her stare from the cliff's top.

"Huh? It should be just after there," Meeka pointed at the very narrow passage ahead, where a lot of trash had accumulated as if carried by a river. "I think we should just go," she added but then the kids started moaning, and she quickly tried to reassure them so they'd just stop with the high-pitched sounds of defiance. Judy sat on a hostile rock and removed the heavy weight of her knapsack. She realized just now that she had been carrying her stunstick all the way through the steep passage. Her paws felt numb from its weight, but so did her feet. One of them had leaked blood from all this difficult walking. It would've been good if there were some leaves and dirt to sooth the steps, not tiny pebbles of razor ends.

The atmosphere had been gloomy from the start. Sure she was excited of getting her questions answered, but they weren't helping her from ridding her heart of the weight. The weight was now heftier. It was like she had added more chains around its frame. These people were all downtrodden, they were hostages of an unfair system, and she saw only hate within her own eyes. This hate was making the recollections of her experiences to simmer under the gaze of bad decisions. She could feel that she was losing parts of what made her… _her_.

Mati came to Judy, holding something that looked like a small wooden box, to which Judy furrowed her brows and asked, "Hey, what's that?" Mati smiled and sat next to Judy, consequently, she kicked her feet into the air playfully and pushed the small box into Judy's paws.

"Open," Mati beamed and leaned in expectancy to what she obviously wanted to share. The small box was pawcrafted with many gastropod shapes carved within the polished, umber wood. There was also an inscription of a heart chiseled through. Judy flicked the metal lid and used her beige claw to open the contents of the box. Within were the many shells of snails, but they weren't generic or identical, every single one was of different patterns, colors and textures. Judy was amazed that a lot of them weren't ever seen by her. It tickled the pride a bit. She was a farm girl after all…

"Where'd you get them? There're no forests here," Judy asked and turned to look at the confused girl. Strangely, just now she registered her sage eyes. Surely the darkness of this place was to be blamed.

"What is forest?" Right, even the simplest of things here weren't known by the people. She felt slight envy to all the new experiences they'd have the opportunity to go through, all the _privileges_ she had had even at the earliest of childhood.

"Well, they're places up there," Judy pointed at the ceiling and the girl squinted her eyes in even more confusion, as a result, Judy smirked and added, "it's above the ground with tall, brown trees with green crowns. They keep a constant shade to the grass and soft soil below."

"There snails there?"

"Yea, many. Especially after water pours from the sky."

"Can I see?"

"You will, you will," Judy playfully tipped the girl's ear to a reaction of a giggle and noticed the flash of warmth that moved across Verhel's expression, yet he scowled away. Hardass dad in exterior. "Oh, so where'd you find these?" she asked while rotating a very peculiar shell with jagged edges and different spiral colors.

"Ah! My ma works in market and I get snail out. She let me keep their homes. You like?"

"They're beautiful. Just like you," the comment made the girl to blush and tug on her brown shawl. Judy felt some sort of relief in herself at this, consequently, she entered a bubble of unstable serenity for the time being. She glanced towards Ron, to see what he was doing, and noticed that he was looking shyly at them, but the moment he caught her eyes, he swiftly traced away and went rummaging into his knapsack as if touched by invisible fire.

"Your brother seems to not like me." Mati's ears slightly fell and she began playing with her gloved fingers, as if what she was about to say was unwanted.

"No, he just scared… you look scary when… you have that stare," she murmured and looked from the corners of her eyes at Judy excusably. Judy felt taken aback at the words and wiggled her nose in bemusement, until realizing how she must've appeared like when she'd start thinking about what had happened to her or anything else of traumatic manner.

"I do? Huh… I do…" She trailed her paw behind her ears in embarrassment and sought for a way to bring more life around them. "What do you want to do when you grow up?" Mati stood up and jumped in place from excitement, as if this was what she was waiting all along to be asked. All the previous dejection disappearing in the blink of a breath.

"Help Ma with market!" The answer lost Judy's smile and her inner-drive was telling her to speak wisdom to the little girl. Yet, how could Mati want to do anything else when this was the only thing she had known all her life? Why try to make her see something else when she was already content of doing what she was already doing. Judy understood at that moment how privileged she had been during her early life, how many opportunities were everywhere around her, while these people were so limited and constricted.

"That's a good thing, Mati," Judy approved, closed the box and pawed it to the beaming girl. In time she'd find her other interests and would move towards her goals, but that time was not today.

Judy's focus was broken again by those obvious glints in the heightness. There! But, but those were silhouettes of movement. Were those other groups that were supposed to come by this beaten camp?

"There's someone on top the cliffs!" Judy shouted and alarmed everyone in her radius. But then the air carried canisters of no small amount, hence, they fell on the rocky ground with clanks.

That was when chaos erupted as the gas pressured out of them and began spreading into the air with the new addition of yellings and cries of the tightly-bound group. Ropes dangled from the cliffs, while explosions began rupturing the below. Was this a slaughter? Judy's glance at the raccoons saw that they were putting on gasmasks. The children tho already had them on their faces. She was to ask if they had one for her, but why would they? Had they expected a bunny with a cloak to come by and join them on the trek up?

Thus, Judy did the most sensible and covered her mouth and nose with her cloak, while pushing back into the partial cover of the old wall. "Stay together!" Meeka shouted at them but then another canister fell just by the side of Judy, hence, she reacted immediately and ran away from the heavy smoke. It stung her eyes quickly and she knew that this was tear gas, judging from her experience at the ZPA.

The smoke was everywhere and new issues came to be in the forms of loud electricity being discharged, thus, Judy hid behind a pile of rocks and put her stunstick in front her body as the last resort to her survival. If this was tear gas then this wasn't mean to be a slaughter, she hoped at least. But then, a larger mammal roped down very close by her. It had a long tail and was fully disguised in black like the devil itself, while the filters of its gasmask flared with clean air to its short muzzle. The obscured eyes glared at her through the foggy spectacles and it drew something like an electrical club, with which it tried to hit Judy. She couldn't maneuver around so she had to scurry over her hiding spot, to the frustration of the masked brute.

Her blood was enriched by her adrenals, and she no longer felt any pain, only the instinct for survival. But before the mammal was to make a move, it was attacked by a furious rhino with an iron rod that hit it straight over the head, but apparently the rhino was blinded and was just swinging that rod randomly. A cloud of gas headed her way and she was forced to move inwards towards the center and into the confines of a tent, where she hid from the onslaught of these masked marauders. The cloak was put deeper into her nostrils and mouth, as she buried herself in the cloth like a primitive anteater onto an ant colony, due to knowing the severe effects that tear gas could induce, effects it was already inducing.

Sure, she wanted to fight, but the chances of getting stomped over or hit by the head, from the lack of awareness, was stopping her pursuit for activism. She was no fool. After the gas would lift up, she could join in and help these people, only she hoped that the raccoons were hiding there still or had fled towards the trail they had carefully trod, not that such was a good idea with its narrowness and cliff of darkness-deep…

The sorrow of the shouts and cries lessened amidst the crackles and bashes. Judy hesitantly tasted the air with her nose. Nothing. Despite that she was feeling discomfort in her eyes and her nose felt runny, while there was a tickle in her lungs. She poked her head out the tent to see the situation better, but she wished she hadn't done that. Amidst the smoke lied trampled mammals in the center and around. They were small like her and had had no chance in this frenzy of panic. There, in the middle, stood a lean frame of a similar marauder, who was looking around through the foggy spectacles of its long-muzzled gas mask. All the emigrants were pushed to the cliffs by the identical assailants, electricity sparking out of their clubs and stunsticks, while the flickering light exposed the rest of the deadly equipment on their belts: guns and guns and guns.

Smoke swirled in the air and hid the rest from view, thus, Judy could only now see the thin mammal in the middle.

" _Ya all've come 'ere to give ya lifes fruitlessly. Ya impendin' deat's serve no purpose to t'is district,_ " called the mammal with an overly confident voice, while having pulled the gas mask at an angle so that his voice could escape its plastic confines. And that voice Judy knew by a squeezing heart. " _From t'e generosity of our compassion, we are 'ere to keep ya alive from ya stupidity. We are ya salvation._ " She knew those lean and bony legs.

" _Now, we can't 'ave ya fig'ting us w'en we've come 'ere in t'e grand goal of redemption._ " She knew that way of expression. " _T'e deat's of t'ose today are on ya conscious. Ya caused t'em wit' ya reckless decisions!_ " the masked mammal yelled with spite.

Bruno…

" _I'll split yu guts out!_ " roared a big bear, who tried to charge through the cordon of masked marauders, and he managed to hit one of them through the shock of electricity and sever that marauder's gasmask from their head, nevertheless, he was brought to his knees by it and finally on his face from the added current.

Bruno seemed incredibly displeased by this defiance and his paw was twitching relentlessly. The rest of the coughing and breathing-equipped emigrants were audibly infuriated as well, and didn't appear as if they were going to turn docile. He pulled something out of his sheath and then a flare lit up the sky in bright red. "If ya see fit to walk in ya delusions, I'll kill ya all myself!" he yelled and pulled out his old pawgun that aimed at a huddled family in closeness.

She knew that gun, that gun that was responsible for bringing tribulations and pain. It made her see flashes of that alley and that red kangaroo, it made her see that storage room and the disgusting smile on that rabbit's face, it made her see within her heart the moment she was backstabbed by the fox she had hooked trust to.

But that wasn't what made Judy's blood to curl in barbed knives. No, it was the finding of three kids that were next to the added corpses of the emigrants. They were like pressed into the rock like after an asphalt rover's pass. She grit her teeth so much that her gums leaked blood. Her stomach churned in the vomit of enmity, and she, she just lost herself in the intoxication of her shattered mind.

" _Boss, we're not he—_ "

" _S'ut t'e fuck up! We were supposed to borrow just a part of w'at ya 'ave. Now ya're goin' to give it all!_ " She could no longer hear her rationale, all she could hear was the noise that edged her to take action, to intervene and just do something… That something tho, it was irreversible and unthinkable, until she had seen the ruined faces of those innocent and blameless…

" _Or I'll start executin' ya, ungrateful shaits!_ " Judy stormed out the tent, she couldn't hear anymore as the blood had filled her ears with unhealthy thumpings, while she grasped her stunstick with a heavy grip that felt like an extension of her arms. Her cover was the stinging smoke that infected her with coughs. Her nose was dripping the taste of salt on her lips and her eyes gave glow to emotionless tears.

" _No? T'en I'l—_ " he turned and saw the sprinting half-naked body of vengeance, "t'e fuck ya do—" but before the thin-legged murderer could react, or anyone else from his group, Judy hit his knee with all force and then unleashed all the fury that he had caused with his existence. It made him fire the gun randomly and clench all his limbs with a fall to the blood-soaked ground, all the while having depressed the trigger of the single-action pistol. But she wasn't stopping, as she bashed the flaming electricity at his face where it began deflating the plastic of his gas mask, subsequently, the heat from the stunstick's head was making her paw to boil.

But she didn't care.

She wanted him to pay for all he had done. Murderer, brute, fiend, betrayer of society, traitor to mammality, cannibal… The plastic caught fire, while the fur around it started doing so in sync. She wanted him to struggle, to retch and feel the worst of torment. But then her ears caught movement from the side, and she stopped the flow of anguish, so she could grab his gun. Steam was bustling off from the head's glow-magmatic, and the essence of chemicals, other than the tear gas, were now fuming into the disturbed space.

Today was the day she would give him _his_ freedom.

That was when she could now hear the labored whimpers of the maned wolf with the new addition of his new burning face. All that plastic was now stuck to him like new coating. She grabbed the gun out of his calcified paws and aimed it at the incoming assailants, some of whom who had drawn their firearms at her. Tho, none of them were bigger than a wolf and she knew that this pawgun could stop them all, accordingly, she shot two loud ripples above their heads and then aimed it at Bruno's whimpering body and melted head-facade. Her eyes felt blurry and her insides were as if on dancing fury. She pushed the stunstick over his heart and snapped at the marauders.

"I'll fry him and then I'll shoot him. A-a—" a loud cough made her to splatter spit in front of herself, "— t-then I'll do the same to every single one of you!" Some apparently believed her, but because the rest didn't, she touched the red glow onto Bruno's heart, where the thick clothing began fuming, and she jolted all that misery into him without a blink of empathy, all the while the crowds were starting to yell and struggle the renewed fight. The gun tho was aimed at his temple and she was sure that it was the only reason she wasn't lying on the ground in the puddle of her own blood.

Freedom had a price, yet this felt too easy… too… quick.

A glance gave her a view to the person she had been wondering to where he was. It was the walrus, who finally emerged from the passage below. His expression was of anger and despair, while his face was all bloodied and a chunk of his neck was missing. Apparently one of the marauders noticed his entrance and that followed a yellow flare that made all those assailants to slowly scurry to the center, yet at a good distance from Judy, while the crowd was encircling them, encouraged by the heroism of the small bunny. She realized that she was still giving Bruno the dosage and that he'd soon be dead if he wasn't yet.

The cloth had caught fire and it was now catching to his fur, while the body coiled and contorted uncontrollably. Maybe she shouldn't stop and should just rid his filth from this world, maybe death was the right way as Diablo had said and showed. It didn't matter if Bruno was following orders. He was a _monster_. He was responsible for her suffering that she had to go through.

No, he had to pay the ultimate price. She wanted him to rot to the end of his days.

Consequently, Judy just let go of the trigger to Bruno's loud coughs of blood and mangles in the empty air. She dashed away with chokes and whimpers from the hoop of shouting marauders. Apparently they were more worried about their own lives than that of the filth that was shallowly hacking on the ground with a still-burning gas mask and clothing.

The wind blew from above and many bats came swatting down with their massive wings. Smoke enveloped the center and the bats themselves, which made Judy to point the gun randomly at the cacophony of noise. Everyone was keeping at a distance from the smoke, yet nothing else significant was occurring.

The smoke then moved outwards and towards Judy, while she could audibly trace the tints of leathery flaps. There, the bats were gaining altitude and she could see that they were transporting the marauders on their backs, while Bruno was being held by a bigger bat under its hooked legs, yet the fire on his body was extinguished to the remnants of smoke. She wanted to shoot, but saw no reason to. The walrus came limping and aimed his big rifle at the ceiling. They were gone, there was no need to—

He took a shot that nearly ruptured her already-ringing ears, furthermore, blinding light with debris exploded on the ceiling, while something like fire fell from the sky. He had hit someone and she actually hoped that to not be Bruno… The walrus aimed for another shot, as he adjusted the levers on his rifle, but then he moved it away and yelled insults of despondency. Judy dropped the heavy stunstick and sat on the cold rock, while keeping the pawgun close to herself without recognizing. Her paw was red and it was hurting to the nerves. There was blood on her silver, chest fur, and it didn't seem to be hers… But that was all the capacity her brain was letting her use, furthermore, she zoned out into the depths of the littered ground.

All was blank and well, until the shivers of regret filled her veins. She hadn't even noticed, but she had lost her cloak somewhere and was bare-chested! And yet, she didn't care, thus, her head went between her legs in a whimper.

Her body felt the vibrations of steps, and she readied herself for more action, but only saw Meeka running towards her. That made Judy to look away shamefully, but then she was gently embraced by the raccoon and the words that followed warmed her crozzled heart, "Thank you, thank you! That was the bravest haggle I've ever seen in my entire life…"

The gun slipped off from Judy's paw and she actually sobbed moisture-less into Meeka's appreciating warmth.

This world, this unfair world, this wrong and evil world…

Judy couldn't hold herself strong and broke into mad and tearless trembles that were the duality of her divided essence.

* * *

 **Author's notes:**

 _Hesitance jumps around your mind,_

 _Grooms decision thus chosen blind._

 _Your thoughts most succulent of snack,_

 _All delivered by luscious feedback._

 _So don't hide like a tiny shrew,_

 _Thus share that belovable review!_

 _\- Chapter was smaller than my set frame of 8k max, guh… Eh, whatever._

 _\- So, new news incoming about the future of **humanity**! Nah, humanity is in the set goals, but first other matters need to be resolved. **Me** and **MisterSmail** are announcing our conjoined **Patre(o)n** , where you can support us and have access to __**Patre(o)n**_ _ **suggestions** that'd be done each month. Also **early** chapters, **Discord** , drafts and resources. Go check it out!_

 _\- Such a step is necessary for us, as it has been 2 years of not earning a dime out of our hobbies. Money is the tool to everything, there's no going around that looming fact of reality. Anyone who likes our work and deems it fit for support is encouraged to do so. Just think of all the smiles and tears and more tears all of our work has brought to the doorstep of your mind! It has gotten better and it will keep on improving until the end of our cycle._

 _\- We're also developing our platform ( **website** ) for writing and editing services that should come up in a few months. Supporters on __**Patre(o)n**_ _will be treated accordingly to the appreciation given._

 _\- By the way, do check our social media and fill out the forms of this recent chapter. It's a more detailed review on what you think about the chapter. It'd take like 1 minute as you can just click a few radio buttons and submit your feedback. It doesn't even need your email. Please? Thanks!_

 _\- Oh, FF guy who constantly screams at me about me being a Judy-something-bitch, shut up before I bruno your ass._

 **Social Links:**

* To use a link just remove the () and replace {dot} with a full stop.

 **·** **Patre(o)n:** _patr(e)on{dot}com/Inlet_

 **·** **Twitter:** _twitter{dot}com/InletReal_

 **· Tumblr:** _inlet-oc{dot}tumblr{dot}com_

 **· Youtube:** _youtube{dot}com/c/Inlet_

 **· Mister** **Smail's AO3 Page:** _archiveofourown{dot}org/users/Mister_Smail_


End file.
